Gamma tocopherol methyltransferase coding sequence identified in Cuphea and uses thereof

ABSTRACT

The present invention relates to genes associated with the tocopherol biosynthesis pathway. More particularly, the present invention provides and includes nucleic acid molecules, proteins, and antibodies associated with genes that encode polypeptides that have methyltransferase activity. The present invention also provides methods for utilizing such agents, for example in gene isolation, gene analysis and the production of transgenic plants. Moreover, the present invention includes transgenic plants modified to express the aforementioned polypeptides. In addition, the present invention includes methods for the production of products from the tocopherol biosynthesis pathway.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a divisional application of application Ser. No. 10/219,810, filed Aug. 16, 2002, which is issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,244,877 and claims the benefit of and priority to U.S. provisional application No. 60/312,758, filed Aug. 17, 2001, the entire disclosures of which are each specifically herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is in the field of plant genetics and biochemistry. More specifically, the invention relates to genes associated with the tocopherol biosynthesis pathway, namely those encoding methyltransferase activity, and uses of such genes.

BACKGROUND

Tocopherols are an important component of mammalian diets. Epidemiological evidence indicates that tocopherol supplementation can result in decreased risk for cardiovascular disease and cancer, can aid in immune function, and is associated with prevention or retardation of a number of degenerative disease processes in humans (Traber and Sies, Annu. Rev. Nutr. 16:321-347 (1996)). Tocopherol functions, in part, by stabilizing the lipid bilayer of biological membranes (Skrypin and Kagan, Biochim. Biophys. Acta 815:209 (1995); Kagan, N.Y. Acad. Sci. p 121, (1989); Gomez-Fernandez et al., Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. p 109 (1989)), reducing polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) free radicals generated by lipid oxidation (Fukuzawa et al., Lipids 17: 511-513 (1982)), and scavenging oxygen free radicals, lipid peroxy radicals and singlet oxygen species (Diplock et al. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 570: 72 (1989); Fryer, Plant Cell Environ. 15(4):381-392 (1992)).

α-Tocopherol, often referred to as vitamin E, belongs to a class of lipid-soluble antioxidants that includes α, β, γ, and δ-tocopherols and α, β, γ, and δ-tocotrienols. Although α, β, γ, and δ-tocopherols and α, β, γ, and δ-tocotrienols are sometimes referred to collectively as “vitamin E”, vitamin E is more appropriately defined chemically as α-tocopherol. α-Tocopherol is significant for human health, in part because it is readily absorbed and retained by the body, and therefore has a higher degree of bioactivity than other tocopherol species (Traber and Sies, Annu. Rev. Nutr. 16:321-347 (1996)). However, other tocopherols such as β, γ, and δ-tocopherols, also have significant health and nutritional benefits.

Tocopherols are primarily synthesized only by plants and certain other photosynthetic organisms, including cyanobacteria. As a result, mammalian dietary tocopherols are obtained almost exclusively from these sources. Plant tissues vary considerably in total tocopherol content and tocopherol composition, with α-tocopherol the predominant tocopherol species found in green, photosynthetic plant tissues. Leaf tissue can contain from 10-50 μg of total tocopherols per gram fresh weight, but most of the world's major staple crops (e.g., rice, corn, wheat, potato) produce low to extremely low levels of total tocopherols, of which only a small percentage is α-tocopherol (Hess, Vitamin E, α-tocopherol, In Antioxidants in Higher Plants, R. Alscher and J. Hess, Eds., CRC Press, Boca Raton. pp. 111-134 (1993)). Oil seed crops generally contain much higher levels of total tocopherols, but α-tocopherol is present only as a minor component in most oilseeds (Taylor and Barnes, Chem. Ind., October: 722-726 (1981)).

The recommended daily dietary intake of 15-30 mg of vitamin E is quite difficult to achieve from the average American diet. For example, it would take over 750 grams of spinach leaves in which α-tocopherol comprises 60% of total tocopherols, or 200-400 grams of soybean oil to satisfy this recommended daily vitamin E intake. While it is possible to augment the diet with supplements, most of these supplements contain primarily synthetic vitamin E, having eight stereoisomers, whereas natural vitamin E is predominantly composed of only a single isomer. Furthermore, supplements tend to be relatively expensive, and the general population is disinclined to take vitamin supplements on a regular basis. Therefore, there is a need in the art for compositions and methods that either increase the total tocopherol production or increase the relative percentage of α-tocopherol produced by plants.

In addition to the health benefits of tocopherols, increased α-tocopherol levels in crops have been associated with enhanced stability and extended shelf life of plant products (Peterson, Cereal-Chem. 72(1):21-24 (1995); Ball, Fat-soluble vitamin assays in food analysis. A comprehensive review, London, Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd. (1988)). Further, tocopherol supplementation of swine, beef, and poultry feeds has been shown to significantly increase meat quality and extend the shelf life of post-processed meat products by retarding post-processing lipid oxidation, which contributes to the undesirable flavor components (Sante and Lacourt, J. Sci. Food Agric. 65(4):503-507 (1994); Buckley et al., J. of Animal Science 73:3122-3130 (1995)).

Tocopherol Biosynthesis

The plastids of higher plants exhibit interconnected biochemical pathways leading to secondary metabolites including tocopherols. The tocopherol biosynthetic pathway in higher plants involves condensation of homogentisic acid and phytylpyrophosphate to form 2-methyl-6 phytylplastoquinol (Fiedler et al., Planta 155: 511-515 (1982); Soll et al., Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 204: 544-550 (1980); Marshall et al., Phytochem. 24: 1705-1711 (1985)). This plant tocopherol pathway can be divided into four parts: 1) synthesis of homogentisic acid, which contributes to the aromatic ring of tocopherol; 2) synthesis of phytylpyrophosphate, which contributes to the side chain of tocopherol; 3) joining of HGA and phytylpyrophosphate via a prenyltransferase followed by a subsequent cyclization; 4) and S-adenosyl methionine dependent methylation of an aromatic ring, which affects the relative abundance of each of the tocopherol species.

Synthesis of Homogentisic Acid

Homogentisic acid is the common precursor to both tocopherols and plastoquinones. In at least some bacteria the synthesis of homogentisic acid is reported to occur via the conversion of chorismate to prephenate and then to p-hydroxyphenylpyruvate via a bifunctional prephenate dehydrogenase. Examples of bifunctional bacterial prephenate dehydrogenase enzymes include the proteins encoded by the tyrA genes of Erwinia herbicola and Escherichia coli. The tyrA gene product catalyzes the production of prephenate from chorismate, as well as the subsequent dehydrogenation of prephenate to form p-hydroxyphenylpyruvate (p-HPP), the immediate precursor to homogentisic acid. p-HPP is then converted to homogentisic acid by hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD). In contrast, plants are believed to lack prephenate dehydrogenase activity, and it is generally believed that the synthesis of homogentisic acid from chorismate occurs via the synthesis and conversion of the intermediate arogenate. Since pathways involved in homogentisic acid synthesis are also responsible for tyrosine formation, any alterations in these pathways can also result in the alteration in tyrosine synthesis and the synthesis of other aromatic amino acids.

Synthesis of Phytylpyrophosphate

Tocopherols are a member of the class of compounds referred to as the isoprenoids. Other isoprenoids include carotenoids, gibberellins, terpenes, chlorophyll and abscisic acid. A central intermediate in the production of isoprenoids is isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP). Cytoplasmic and plastid-based pathways to generate IPP have been reported. The cytoplasmic based pathway involves the enzymes acetoacetyl CoA thiolase, HMGCoA synthase, HMGCoA reductase, mevalonate kinase, phosphomevalonate kinase, and mevalonate pyrophosphate decarboxylase.

Recently, evidence for the existence of an alternative, plastid based, isoprenoid biosynthetic pathway emerged from studies in the research groups of Rohmer and Arigoni (Eisenreich et al., Chem. Bio., 5:R221-R233 (1998); Rohmer, Prog. Drug. Res., 50:135-154 (1998); Rohmer, Comprehensive Natural Products Chemistry, Vol. 2, pp. 45-68, Barton and Nakanishi (eds.), Pergamon Press, Oxford, England (1999)), who found that the isotope labeling patterns observed in studies on certain eubacterial and plant terpenoids could not be explained in terms of the mevalonate pathway. Arigoni and coworkers subsequently showed that 1-deoxyxylulose, or a derivative thereof, serves as an intermediate of the novel pathway, now referred to as the MEP pathway (Rohmer et al., Biochem. J., 295:517-524 (1993); Schwarz, Ph.D. thesis, Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule, Zurich, Switzerland (1994)). Recent studies showed the formation of 1-deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate (Broers, Ph.D. thesis (Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule, Zurich, Switzerland) (1994)) from one molecule each of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate (Rohmer, Comprehensive Natural Products Chemistry, Vol. 2, pp. 45-68, Barton and Nakanishi, eds., Pergamon Press, Oxford, England (1999)) and pyruvate (Eisenreich et al., Chem. Biol., 5:R223-R233 (1998); Schwarz supra; Rohmer et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 118:2564-2566 (1996); and Sprenger et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 94:12857-12862 (1997)) by an enzyme encoded by the dxs gene (Lois et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 95:2105-2110 (1997); and Lange et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 95:2100-2104 (1998)). 1-Deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate can be further converted into 2-C-methylerythritol 4-phosphate (Arigoni et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 94:10600-10605 (1997)) by a reductoisomerase encoded by the dxr gene (Bouvier et al., Plant Physiol, 117:1421-1431 (1998); and Rohdich et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 96:11758-11763 (1999)).

Reported genes in the MEP pathway also include ygbP, which catalyzes the conversion of 2-C-methylerythritol 4-phosphate into its respective cytidyl pyrophosphate derivative and ygbB, which catalyzes the conversion of 4-phosphocytidyl-2C-methyl-D-erythritol into 2C-methyl-D-erythritol, 3,4-cyclophosphate. These genes are tightly linked on the E. coli genome (Herz et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 97(6):2485-2490 (2000)).

Once IPP is formed by the MEP pathway, it is converted to GGDP by GGDP synthase, and then to phytylpyrophosphate, which is the central constituent of the tocopherol side chain.

Combination and Cyclization

Homogentisic acid is combined with either phytyl-pyrophosphate or solanyl-pyrophosphate by phytyl/prenyl transferase forming 2-methyl-6-phytyl plastoquinol or 2-methyl-6-solanyl plastoquinol, respectively. 2-methyl-6-solanyl plastoquinol is a pre-cursor to the biosynthesis of plastoquinones, while 2-methyl-6-phytyl plastoquinol is ultimately converted to tocopherol.

Methylation of the Aromatic Ring

The major structural difference between each of the tocopherol subtypes is the position of the methyl groups around the phenyl ring. Both 2-methyl-6-phytyl plastoquinol and 2-methyl-6-solanyl plastoquinol serve as substrates for 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase (Methyl Transferase 1; MT1), which catalyzes the formation of plastoquinol-9 and γ-tocopherol respectively, by methylation of the 7 position. Subsequent methylation at the 5 position of γ-tocopherol by γ-tocopherol methyl-transferase (GMT) generates the biologically active α-tocopherol. Additional potential MT1 substrates include 2-methyl-5-phytylplastoquinol and 2-methyl-3-phytylplastoquinol. Additional potential substrates for GMT include δ-tocopherol and γ- and δ-tocotrienol.

There is a need in the art for nucleic acid molecules encoding enzymes involved in tocopherol biosynthesis, as well as related enzymes and antibodies for the enhancement or alteration of tocopherol production in plants. There is a further need for transgenic organisms expressing those nucleic acid molecules involved in tocopherol biosynthesis, which are capable of nutritionally enhancing food and feed sources.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention includes and provides a substantially purified nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85.

The present invention includes and provides a substantially purified nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence that encodes an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO: 19-31 and 33-38.

The present invention includes and provides a substantially purified nucleic acid molecule comprising as operably linked components: (A) a promoter region which functions in a plant cell to cause the production of an mRNA molecule; (B) a heterologous nucleic acid molecule encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-41.

The present invention includes and provides a substantially purified protein comprising an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, and 33-38.

The present invention includes and provides an antibody capable of specifically binding a substantially purified protein comprising an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, and 33-38.

The present invention includes and provides a transformed plant having an exogenous nucleic acid molecule that encodes a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, and 33-41.

The present invention includes and provides a transformed plant having an exogenous nucleic acid molecule that encodes a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49.

The present invention includes and provides a method for reducing expression of MT1 or GMT in a plant comprising: (A) transforming a plant with a nucleic acid molecule, said nucleic acid molecule having an exogenous promoter region which functions in plant cells to cause the production of a mRNA molecule, wherein said exogenous promoter region is linked to a transcribed nucleic acid molecule having a transcribed strand and a non-transcribed strand, wherein said transcribed strand is complementary to a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85; and wherein said transcribed nucleic acid molecule is linked to a 3′ non-translated sequence that functions in the plant cells to cause termination of transcription and addition of polyadenylated ribonucleotides to a 3′ end of the mRNA sequence; and (B) growing said transformed plant.

The present invention includes and provides a transformed plant comprising a nucleic acid molecule comprising an exogenous promoter region which functions in plant cells to cause the production of a mRNA molecule, wherein the exogenous promoter region is linked to a transcribed nucleic acid molecule having a transcribed strand and a non-transcribed strand, wherein the transcribed strand is complementary to a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, 85, and wherein the transcribed nucleic acid molecule is linked to a 3′ non-translated sequence that functions in the plant cells to cause termination of transcription and addition of polyadenylated ribonucleotides to a 3′ end of the mRNA sequence; wherein, the expression of MT1, GMT or both is reduced relative to a plant with a similar genetic background but lacking the exogenous nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention includes and provides method for increasing the γ-tocopherol content in a plant comprising: (A) transforming a plant with a nucleic acid molecule, the nucleic acid molecule comprising an exogenous promoter region which functions in plant cells to cause the production of a mRNA molecule, wherein the exogenous promoter region is linked to a transcribed nucleic acid molecule comprising a transcribed strand and a non-transcribed strand, wherein the transcribed strand is complementary to a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85; and wherein the transcribed nucleic acid molecule is linked to a 3′ non-translated sequence that functions in the plant cells to cause termination of transcription and addition of polyadenylated ribonucleotides to a 3′ end of the mRNA sequence; and (C) growing the transformed plant.

The current invention further includes and provides a transformed plant comprising: (A) a first nucleic acid molecule comprising an exogenous promoter region which functions in plant cells to cause the production of a mRNA molecule, wherein the exogenous promoter region is linked to a transcribed nucleic acid molecule having a transcribed strand and a non-transcribed strand, wherein the transcribed strand is complementary to a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85, and wherein the transcribed nucleic acid molecule is linked to a 3′ non-translated sequence that functions in the plant cells to cause termination of transcription and addition of polyadenylated ribonucleotides to a 3′ end of the mRNA sequence; and (B) a second nucleic acid molecule comprising an exogenous promoter region which functions in plant cells to cause the production of a mRNA molecule, wherein the exogenous promoter region is linked to a nucleic acid molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 42-45, wherein the γ-tocopherol content of the transformed plant is increased relative to a plant with a similar genetic background but lacking the exogenous nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention includes and provides a method of producing a plant having a seed with an increased α-tocopherol level comprising: (A) transforming the plant with a nucleic acid molecule, wherein the nucleic acid molecule comprises a sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, and 39-41; and (B) growing the transformed plant.

The present invention includes and provides a method of producing a plant having a seed with an increased γ-tocopherol level comprising: (A) transforming the plant with a nucleic acid molecule, wherein the nucleic acid molecule comprises a nucleic acid sequence that encodes a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49; and (B) growing the transformed plant.

The present invention includes and provides a method of accumulating α-tocopherol in a seed comprising: (A) growing a plant with a heterologous nucleic acid molecule, wherein the heterologous nucleic acid molecule comprises a sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, and 39-41; and (B) isolating said seed from said plant with a heterologous nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention includes and provides a method of accumulating α-tocopherol in a seed comprising: (A) growing a plant with a heterologous nucleic acid molecule, wherein the heterologous nucleic acid molecule comprises a sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49; and (B) isolating said seed from said plant with a heterologous nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention includes and provides a seed derived from a transformed plant having an exogenous nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence encoding an polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, and 39-41, wherein the seed has an increased α-tocopherol level relative to seeds from a plant having a similar genetic background but lacking the exogenous nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention includes and provides an oil derived from a seed of a transformed plant, wherein the transformed plant contains an exogenous nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, and 39-41.

The present invention includes and provides feedstock comprising a transformed plant or part thereof, wherein the transformed plant has an exogenous nucleic acid molecule that comprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, and 39-41.

The present invention includes and provides a meal comprising plant material manufactured from a transformed plant, wherein the transformed plant has an exogenous nucleic acid molecule that comprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, and 39-41.

The present invention includes and provides a seed derived from a transformed plant having an exogenous nucleic acid molecule comprising a sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49, wherein the seed has an increased tocopherol level relative to seeds from a plant having a similar genetic background but lacking the exogenous nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention includes and provides oil derived from a seed of a transformed plant, wherein the transformed plant contains an exogenous nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49.

The present invention also includes and provides feedstock comprising a transformed plant or part thereof, wherein the transformed plant has an exogenous nucleic acid molecule that comprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49.

The present invention also includes and provides meal comprising plant material manufactured from a transformed plant, wherein the transformed plant has an exogenous nucleic acid molecule that comprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding a polypeptide molecule comprising a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO: 46-49.

The present invention also includes and provides a host cell comprising a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 42-45 and complements thereof.

The present invention also includes and provides an introduced first nucleic acid molecule that encodes a polypeptide molecule comprising an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, and 39-41, and an introduced second nucleic acid molecule encoding an enzyme selected from the group consisting of tyrA, slr1736, ATPT2, dxs, dxr, GGPPS, HPPD, GMT, MT1, tMT2, AANT1, slr 1737, and an antisense construct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase.

The present invention also includes and provides a transformed plant comprising an introduced first nucleic acid molecule that encodes a polypeptide molecule comprising an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49, and an introduced second nucleic acid molecule encoding an enzyme selected from the group consisting of tyrA, slr1736, ATPT2, dxs, dxr, GGPPS, HPPD, GMT, MT1, tMT2, AANT1, slr 1737, and an antisense construct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase.

The present invention also includes and provides a plant comprising an introduced nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 42-45, wherein said transformed plant produces a seed having increased total tocopherol relative to seed of a plant with a similar genetic background but lacking said introduced nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention also includes and provides a plant comprising an introduced nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, 85, wherein said transformed plant produces a seed having increased total tocopherol relative to seed of a plant with a similar genetic background but lacking said introduced nucleic acid molecule.

The present invention also includes and provides a plant comprising a first introduced nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85 and a second introduced nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 42-45, wherein said transformed plant produces a seed having increased total tocopherol relative to seed of a plant with a similar genetic background but lacking both said introduced first nucleic acid molecule and said introduced second nucleic acid molecule.

DESCRIPTION OF THE NUCLEIC AND AMINO ACID SEQUENCES

SEQ ID NO: 1 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes an Arabidopsis thaliana gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 2 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes an Arabidopsis thaliana, Columbia ecotype, gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 3 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes an Oryza sativa gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 4 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Gossypium hirsutum gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 5 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Cuphea pulcherrima gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 6 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Brassica napus S8 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 7 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Brassica napus P4 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 8 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Brassica napus S8 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 9 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Brassica napus P4 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 10 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Lycopersicon esculentum gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 11 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Glycine max gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase 1.

SEQ ID NO: 12 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Glycine max gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase 2.

SEQ ID NO: 13 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Glycine max gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase 3.

SEQ ID NO: 14 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Tagetes erecta gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 15 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Sorghum bicolor gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 16 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes a Nostoc punctiforme gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 17 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a DNA molecule that encodes an Anabaena gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 18 set forth a derived amino acid sequence of an Arabidopsis thaliana gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 19 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of an Arabidopsis thaliana, Columbia ecotype, gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 20 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of an Oryza sativa gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 21 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Zea mays gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 22 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Gossypium hirsutum gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 23 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Cuphea pulcherrima gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 24 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Brassica napus S8 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 25 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Brassica napus P4 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 26 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Lycopersicon esculentum gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 27 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Glycine max gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 28 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Glycine max gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 29 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Glycine max gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 30 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Tagetes erecta gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 31 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Sorghum bicolor gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 32 sets forth an amino acid sequence of a pea rubisco small subunit chloroplast targeting sequence (CTP1).

SEQ ID NO: 33 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of a Brassica napus S8 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 34 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of a Brassica napus P4 gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 35 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of a Cuphea pulcherrima gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 36 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of a Gossypium hirsutum gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 37 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of a Tagetes erecta gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 38 sets forth a derived mature amino acid sequence of a Zea mays gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 39 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Nostoc punctiforme gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 40 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of an Anabaena gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 41 sets forth an amino acid sequence of Synechocystis gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 42 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a nucleic acid molecule encoding a Synechocystis pcc 6803 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 43 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a nucleic acid molecule encoding an Anabaena 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 44 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a nucleic acid molecule encoding a Synechococcus 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 45 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a nucleic acid molecule encoding a Prochlorococcus marinus 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 46 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of an Synechocystis pcc 6803 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 47 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of an Anabaena 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 48 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Synechococcus 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase SEQ ID NO: 49 sets forth a derived amino acid sequence of a Prochlorococcus 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NO: 50 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of an Oryza saliva gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 51 and 52 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying a Brassica napus S8 gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 53 and 54 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying a Brassica napus P4 gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 55 and 56 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying a Cuphea pulcherrima gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 57 and 58 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying a Gossypium hirsutum gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 59 and 60 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying a mature Brassica napus S8 gamma methyl transferase and a mature Brassica napus P4 gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 61 and 62 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying a mature Cuphea pulcherrima gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 63 and 64 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying a mature Gossypium hirsutum gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 65 and 66 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying a mature Tagetes erecta gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 67 and 68 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying a Nostoc punctiforme gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 69 and 70 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying an Anabaena gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 71 and 72 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying an Anabaena 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 73 and 74 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying a mature Zea mays gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 75 and 76 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying an Arabidopsis gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 77 and 78 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying an Arabidopsis gamma methyl transferase.

SEQ ID NOs: 79 and 80 set forth a nucleic acid sequence of primers for use in amplifying an Arcelin 5 promoter.

SEQ ID NO: 81 sets forth a 5′ translational start region of a nucleic acid sequence corresponding to an Arcelin 5 promoter from pARC5-1-SEQ ID NO: 82 sets forth a 5′ translational start region of a nucleic acid sequence corresponding to an Arcelin 5 promoter from pARC5-1M.

SEQ ID NOs: 83 and 84 set forth nucleic acid sequences of primers for use in amplifying an Anabaena putative-MT1 coding sequence.

SEQ ID NO: 85 sets forth a nucleic acid sequence of a Zea mays gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a schematic of construct pET-DEST42.

FIG. 2 is a schematic of construct pCGN9979.

FIG. 3 is a schematic of construct pMON26592.

FIG. 4 is a schematic of construct pMON26593.

FIG. 5 is a schematic of construct pMON55524.

FIG. 6 is a schematic of construct pMON36500.

FIG. 7 is a schematic of construct pMON36501.

FIG. 8 is a schematic of construct pMON36502.

FIG. 9 is a schematic of construct pMON36503.

FIG. 10 is a schematic of construct pMON36504.

FIG. 11 is a schematic of construct pMON36505.

FIG. 12 is a schematic of construct pMON36506.

FIG. 13 is a schematic of construct pMON67157.

FIG. 14 is a graph depicting the soy seed tocopherol content and composition from pooled seed of the R1 generation of plants transformed with pMON36503. This construct expresses an A. thaliana GMT under p7S promoter control.

FIG. 15 is a graph depicting the soy seed tocopherol content and composition from pooled seed of the R1 generation of plants transformed with pMON36505. This construct expresses an A. thaliana GMT under arcelin 5 promoter control.

FIG. 16 is a graph depicting the soy seed tocopherol content and composition from pooled seed of the R1 generation of plants transformed with pMON36506. This construct expresses an A. thaliana GMT under the control of the modified arcelin 5 promoter.

FIG. 17 is a graph representing the enzyme activities of various gamma-methyltransferases (GMT) and a tocopherol methyl transferase 1 (MT1) in recombinant E. coli crude extract preparations. Enzyme activities are expressed as either pmol α-tocopherol (GMT) or 2,3-dimethyl-5-phytylplastoquinol (MT1) formation per mg protein per min. Vector designations stand for the following recombinant genes: pMON67171, mature cotton GMT; pMON67173, mature Cuphea pulcherrima GMT; pMON67177, mature marigold GMT; pMON67181, mature Brassica napus S8 GMT; pMON67183, Zea mays GMT; pMON67175, Anabaena GMT; pMON67176, Nostoc GMT; and pMON67174, Anabaena MT1.

FIG. 18 is an HPLC chromatogram, representing the methyltransferase activity of recombinant expressed Anabaena methyltransferase 1. Enzyme activity is monitored on crude cell extracts from E. coli harboring pMON67174.

FIG. 19 is an HPLC chromatogram, representing the Methyltransferase activity of recombinant expressed Anabaena methyltransferase 1 without 2-methylphytylplastoquinol substrate (negative control). Enzyme activity is monitored on crude cell extracts from E. coli harboring pMON67174.

FIG. 20 is an HPLC chromatogram, representing the methyltransferase 1 activity in isolated pea chloroplasts (positive control).

FIGS. 21A and 21B are graphs representing the α and γ-tocopherol levels in Arabidopsis T₂ seed from 5 transgenic control plants containing the napin binary vector (9979), 15 transgenic plants expressing the Arabidopsis thaliana GMT gene (Columbia ecotype) under the control of the napin promoter (67156) and 13 transgenic plants expressing the Brassica napus P4 GMT under the control of the napin promoter (67159).

FIGS. 22A and 22B are graphs representing the α and γ-tocopherol levels in Arabidopsis T₂ seeds from 5 transgenic plants containing the napin binary vector (9979), 15 transgenic plants expressing the Cuphea pulcherrima GMT gene under the control of the napin promoter (67158) and 1 transgenic plant expressing the Brassica napus P4 GMT under the control of the napin promoter (67159).

FIG. 23 is a graph representing the average seed γ-tocopherol level in transformed Arabidopsis plants harboring expression constructs for the Arabidopsis thaliana ecotype Columbia GMT (67156), the cuphea GMT (67158), the Brassica P4 GMT (67159), the cotton GMT (67160), and the Brassica S8 GMT (67170).

FIG. 24 is a graph representing the average seed α-tocopherol level in transformed Brassica plants.

FIG. 25 shows the percent of seed δ-tocopherol in Arabidopsis T2 seed from lines expressing MT1 under the control of the napin promoter.

FIG. 26 shows T₃ seed δ-tocopherol levels in two lines expressing MT1 under the control of the napin promoter.

FIG. 27 represents pMON67212.

FIG. 28 represents pMON67213.

FIG. 29 shows total tocopherol level for Arabidopsis transformed with an MT1 and prenyltransferase double construct.

FIG. 30 shows γ tocopherol level for Arabidopsis transformed with an MT1 and prenyltransferase double construct.

FIG. 31 shows δ-tocopherol level for Arabidopsis transformed with an MT1 and prenyltransferase double construct.

FIG. 32 shows α-tocopherol level for Arabidopsis transformed with an MT1 and prenyltransferase double construct.

FIG. 33 is a graph showing 2-Methylphytylplastoquinol methyltransferase activity obtained with recombinant proteins and a pea chloroplast control. Data are obtained with recombinant proteins from microbial and plant sources.

FIG. 34 is a graph showing GMT substrate specificity for gamma-tocopherols versus gamma-tocotrienols. GMT activity is measured with recombinant expressed gamma methyltransferases from cotton, Anabaena, and corn, using gamma tocopherol or gamma-tocotrienol and S-adenosylmethionine as a substrate.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention provides a number of agents, for example, nucleic acid molecules and polypeptides associated with the synthesis of tocopherol, and provides uses of such agents.

Agents

The agents of the invention will preferably be “biologically active” with respect to either a structural attribute, such as the capacity of a nucleic acid to hybridize to another nucleic acid molecule, or the ability of a protein to be bound by an antibody (or to compete with another molecule for such binding). Alternatively, such an attribute may be catalytic and thus involve the capacity of the agent to mediate a chemical reaction or response. The agents will preferably be “substantially purified.” The term “substantially purified,” as used herein, refers to a molecule separated from substantially all other molecules normally associated with it in its native state. More preferably a substantially purified molecule is the predominant species present in a preparation. A substantially purified molecule may be greater than 60% free, preferably 75% free, more preferably 90% free, and most preferably 95% free from the other molecules (exclusive of solvent) present in the natural mixture. The term “substantially purified” is not intended to encompass molecules present in their native state.

The agents of the invention may also be recombinant. As used herein, the term recombinant means any agent (e.g., DNA, peptide etc.), that is, or results, however indirectly, from human manipulation of a nucleic acid molecule.

It is understood that the agents of the invention may be labeled with reagents that facilitate detection of the agent (e.g., fluorescent labels, Prober et al., Science 238:336-340 (1987); Albarella et al., EP 144914; chemical labels, Sheldon et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,789; Albarella et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,563,417; modified bases, Miyoshi et al., EP 119448).

Nucleic Acid Molecules

Agents of the invention include nucleic acid molecules. In a preferred aspect of the present invention the nucleic acid molecule comprises a nucleic acid sequence, which encodes a gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase. As used herein a gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase (also referred to as GMT, γ-GMT, γ-MT, γ-TMT or gamma-methyltransferase) is any polypeptide that is capable of specifically catalyzing the conversion of γ-tocopherol into α-tocopherol. In certain plant species such as soybean, GMT can also catalyze the conversion of δ-tocopherol to β-tocopherol. In other plants, mainly monocotyledons such as corn and wheat, GMT can also catalyze the conversion of γtocotrienol to α-tocotrienol and δ-tocotrienol to β-tocotrienol. A preferred gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase is a plant or cynobacterial gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase, more preferably a gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase that is also found in an organism selected from the group consisting of Arabidopsis, rice, corn, cotton, cuphea, oilseed rape, tomato, soybean, marigold, sorghum, and leek, most preferably a gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase that is also found in an organism selected from the group consisting of Arabidopsis thaliana, Oryza saliva, Zea mays, Gossypium hirsutum, Cuphea pulcherrima, Brassica napus, Lycopersicon esculentum, Glycine max, Tagetes erecta, and Lilium asiaticum. An example of a more preferred gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase is a polypeptide with one of the amino acid sequences set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 19-31 and 33-38.

In another embodiment of the invention, genomic DNA is used to transform any of the plants disclosed herein. Genomic DNA (e.g. SEQ ID NOs: 6 and 7) can be particularly useful for transforming monocotyledonous plants (e.g. SEQ ID NOs: 6 and 7).

In another preferred aspect of the present invention the nucleic acid molecule of the invention comprises a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85, and complements thereof and fragments of either. In a further aspect of the present invention the nucleic acid molecule comprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33, and 38 and fragments thereof.

In another preferred aspect of the present invention the nucleic acid molecule comprises a nucleic acid sequence, which encodes a 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase. As used herein a 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase (MT1) is any protein that is capable of specifically catalyzing the conversion of 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol, 2-methyl-5-phytylplastoquinol or 2-methyl-3-phytylplastoquinol to 2,3-dimethyl-6-phytylplastoquinol. A preferred MT 1 is a cyanobacterial MT 1, more preferably an MT 1 that is also found in an organism selected from the group consisting of Anabaena, Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus marinus. An example of a more preferred MT 1 is a polypeptide with the amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49.

In another preferred aspect of the present invention the nucleic acid molecule of the invention comprises a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 42-45 and complements thereof and fragments of either. In a further aspect of the present invention the nucleic acid molecule comprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49 and fragments thereof.

In another preferred aspect of the present invention a nucleic acid molecule comprises nucleotide sequences encoding a plastid transit peptide operably fused to a nucleic acid molecule that encodes a protein or fragment of the present invention.

It is understood that in a further aspect of the present invention, the nucleic acids can encode a protein that differs from any of the proteins in that one or more amino acids have been deleted, substituted or added without altering the function. For example, it is understood that codons capable of coding for such conservative amino acid substitutions are known in the art.

One subset of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention is fragment nucleic acids molecules. Fragment nucleic acid molecules may consist of significant portion(s) of, or indeed most of, the nucleic acid molecules of the invention, such as those specifically disclosed. Alternatively, the fragments may comprise smaller oligonucleotides (having from about 15 to about 400 nucleotide residues and more preferably, about 15 to about 30 nucleotide residues, or about 50 to about 100 nucleotide residues, or about 100 to about 200 nucleotide residues, or about 200 to about 400 nucleotide residues, or about 275 to about 350 nucleotide residues).

A fragment of one or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be a probe and specifically a PCR probe. A PCR probe is a nucleic acid molecule capable of initiating a polymerase activity while in a double-stranded structure with another nucleic acid. Various methods for determining the structure of PCR probes and PCR techniques exist in the art. Computer generated searches using programs such as Primer3 (www.genome.wi.mit.edu/cgi-bin/primer/primer3.cgi), STSPipeline (www.genome.wi.mit.edu/cgi-bin/www-STS_Pipeline), or GeneUp (Pesole et al., BioTechniques 25:112-123 (1998)), for example, can be used to identify potential PCR primers.

Another subset of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention include nucleic acid molecules that encode a polypeptide or fragment thereof.

Nucleic acid molecules or fragments thereof of the present invention are capable of specifically hybridizing to other nucleic acid molecules under certain circumstances. Nucleic acid molecules of the present invention include those that specifically hybridize to nucleic acid molecules having a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85, and complements thereof. Nucleic acid molecules of the present invention also include those that specifically hybridize to nucleic acid molecules encoding an amino acid sequence selected from SEQ ID NOs: 19-31 and 33-38 and fragments thereof.

As used herein, two nucleic acid molecules are said to be capable of specifically hybridizing to one another if the two molecules are capable of forming an anti-parallel, double-stranded nucleic acid structure.

A nucleic acid molecule is said to be the “complement” of another nucleic acid molecule if they exhibit complete complementarity. As used herein, molecules are said to exhibit “complete complementarity” when every nucleotide of one of the molecules is complementary to a nucleotide of the other. Two molecules are said to be “minimally complementary” if they can hybridize to one another with sufficient stability to permit them to remain annealed to one another under at least conventional “low-stringency” conditions. Similarly, the molecules are said to be “complementary” if they can hybridize to one another with sufficient stability to permit them to remain annealed to one another under conventional “high-stringency” conditions. Conventional stringency conditions are described by Sambrook et al., Molecular Cloning, A Laboratory Manual, 2nd Ed., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1989), and by Haymes et al., Nucleic Acid Hybridization, A Practical Approach, IRL Press, Washington, D.C. (1985). Departures from complete complementarity are therefore permissible, as long as such departures do not completely preclude the capacity of the molecules to form a double-stranded structure. Thus, in order for a nucleic acid molecule to serve as a primer or probe it need only be sufficiently complementary in sequence to be able to form a stable double-stranded structure under the particular solvent and salt concentrations employed.

Appropriate stringency conditions which promote DNA hybridization are, for example, 6.0× sodium chloride/sodium citrate (SSC) at about 45° C., followed by a wash of 2.0×SSC at 20-25° C., are known to those skilled in the art or can be found in Current Protocols in Molecular Biology, John Wiley & Sons, N.Y. (1989), 6.3.1-6.3.6. For example, the salt concentration in the wash step can be selected from a low stringency of about 2.0×SSC at 50° C. to a high stringency of about 0.2×SSC at 65° C. In addition, the temperature in the wash step can be increased from low stringency conditions at room temperature, about 22° C., to high stringency conditions at about 65° C. Both temperature and salt may be varied, or either the temperature or the salt concentration may be held constant while the other variable is changed.

In a preferred embodiment, a nucleic acid of the present invention will specifically hybridize to one or more of the nucleic acid molecules set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85 and complements thereof under moderately stringent conditions, for example at about 2.0×SSC and about 65° C.

In a particularly preferred embodiment, a nucleic acid of the present invention will include those nucleic acid molecules that specifically hybridize to one or more of the nucleic acid molecules set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85 and complements thereof under high stringency conditions such as 0.2×SSC and about 65° C.

In one aspect of the present invention, the nucleic acid molecules of the present invention have one or more of the nucleic acid sequences set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85 and complements thereof. In another aspect of the present invention, one or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the present invention share between 100% and 90% sequence identity with one or more of the nucleic acid sequences set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85 and complements thereof and fragments of either. In a further aspect of the present invention, one or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the present invention share between 100% and 95% sequence identity with one or more of the nucleic acid sequences set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85, complements thereof, and fragments of either. In a more preferred aspect of the present invention, one or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the present invention share between 100% and 98% sequence identity with one or more of the nucleic acid sequences set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85, complements thereof and fragments of either. In an even more preferred aspect of the present invention, one or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the present invention share between 100% and 99% sequence identity with one or more of the sequences set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85, complements thereof, and fragments of either.

In a preferred embodiment the percent identity calculations are performed using BLASTN or BLASTP (default, parameters, version 2.0.8, Altschul et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 25: 3389-3402 (1997)).

A nucleic acid molecule of the invention can also encode a homolog polypeptide. As used herein, a homolog polypeptide molecule or fragment thereof is a counterpart protein molecule or fragment thereof in a second species (e.g., corn rubisco small subunit is a homolog of Arabidopsis rubisco small subunit). A homolog can also be generated by molecular evolution or DNA shuffling techniques, so that the molecule retains at least one functional or structure characteristic of the original polypeptide (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,811,238).

In another embodiment, the homolog is selected from the group consisting of alfalfa, Arabidopsis, barley, Brassica campestris, oilseed rape, broccoli, cabbage, canola, citrus, cotton, garlic, oat, onion, flax, an ornamental plant, peanut, pepper, potato, rapeseed, rice, rye, sorghum, strawberry, sugarcane, sugarbeet, tomato, wheat, poplar, pine, fir, eucalyptus, apple, lettuce, lentils, grape, banana, tea, turf grasses, sunflower, soybean, corn, Phaseolus, crambe, mustard, castor bean, sesame, cottonseed, linseed, safflower, and oil palm. More particularly, preferred homologs are selected from canola, corn, Brassica campestris, oilseed rape, soybean, crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame, cottonseed, linseed, rapeseed, safflower, oil palm, flax, and sunflower. In an even more preferred embodiment, the homolog is selected from the group consisting of canola, rapeseed, corn, Brassica campestris, Brassica napus, soybean, sunflower, safflower, oil palms, and peanut. In a particularly preferred embodiment, the homolog is soybean. In a particularly preferred embodiment, the homolog is canola. In a particularly preferred embodiment, the homolog is Brassica napus.

In another further aspect of the present invention, nucleic acid molecules of the present invention can comprise sequences that differ from those encoding a polypeptide or fragment thereof in SEQ ID NOs: 19-31 and 33-38 due to the fact that a polypeptide can have one or more conservative amino acid changes, and nucleic acid sequences coding for the polypeptide can therefore have sequence differences. It is understood that codons capable of coding for such conservative amino acid substitutions are known in the art.

It is well known in the art that one or more amino acids in a native sequence can be substituted with other amino acid(s), the charge and polarity of which are similar to that of the native amino acid, i.e., a conservative amino acid substitution. Conservative substitutes for an amino acid within the native polypeptide sequence can be selected from other members of the class to which the amino acid belongs. Amino acids can be divided into the following four groups: (1) acidic amino acids, (2) basic amino acids, (3) neutral polar amino acids, and (4) neutral, nonpolar amino acids. Representative amino acids within these various groups include, but are not limited to, (1) acidic (negatively charged) amino acids such as aspartic acid and glutamic acid; (2) basic (positively charged) amino acids such as arginine, histidine, and lysine; (3) neutral polar amino acids such as glycine, serine, threonine, cysteine, cystine, tyrosine, asparagine, and glutamine; and (4) neutral nonpolar (hydrophobic) amino acids such as alanine, leucine, isoleucine, valine, proline, phenylalanine, tryptophan, and methionine.

Conservative amino acid substitution within the native polypeptide sequence can be made by replacing one amino acid from within one of these groups with another ammo acid from within the same group. In a preferred aspect, biologically functional equivalents of the proteins or fragments thereof of the present invention can have ten or fewer conservative amino acid changes, more preferably seven or fewer conservative amino acid changes, and most preferably five or fewer conservative amino acid changes. The encoding nucleotide sequence will thus have corresponding base substitutions, permitting it to encode biologically functional equivalent forms of the polypeptides of the present invention.

It is understood that certain amino acids may be substituted for other amino acids in a protein structure without appreciable loss of interactive binding capacity with structures such as, for example, antigen-binding regions of antibodies or binding sites on substrate molecules. Because it is the interactive capacity and nature of a protein that defines that protein's biological functional activity, certain amino acid sequence substitutions can be made in a protein sequence and, of course, its underlying DNA coding sequence and, nevertheless, a protein with like properties can still be obtained. It is thus contemplated by the inventors that various changes may be made in the peptide sequences of the proteins or fragments of the present invention, or corresponding DNA sequences that encode said peptides, without appreciable loss of their biological utility or activity. It is understood that codons capable of coding for such amino acid changes are known in the art.

In making such changes, the hydropathic index of amino acids may be considered. The importance of the hydropathic amino acid index in conferring interactive biological function on a protein is generally understood in the art (Kyte and Doolittle, J. Mol. Biol. 157, 105-132 (1982)). It is accepted that the relative hydropathic character of the amino acid contributes to the secondary structure of the resultant polypeptide, which in turn defines the interaction of the protein with other molecules, for example, enzymes, substrates, receptors, DNA, antibodies, antigens, and the like.

Each amino acid has been assigned a hydropathic index on the basis of its hydrophobicity and charge characteristics (Kyte and Doolittle, J. Mol. Biol. 157:105-132 (1982)); these are isoleucine (+4.5), valine (+4.2), leucine (+3.8), phenylalanine (+2.8), cysteine/cystine (+2.5), methionine (+1.9), alanine (+1.8), glycine (−0.4), threonine (−0.7), serine (−0.8), tryptophan (−0.9), tyrosine (−1.3), proline (−1.6), histidine (−3.2), glutamate (−3.5), glutamine (−3.5), aspartate (−3.5), asparagine (−3.5), lysine (−3.9), and arginine (−4.5).

In making such changes, the substitution of amino acids whose hydropathic indices are within ±2 is preferred, those that are within ±1 are particularly preferred, and those within ±0.5 are even more particularly preferred.

It is also understood in the art that the substitution of like amino acids can be made effectively on the basis of hydrophilicity. U.S. Pat. No. 4,554,101 states that the greatest local average hydrophilicity of a protein, as governed by the hydrophilicity of its adjacent amino acids, correlates with a biological property of the protein.

As detailed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,554,101, the following hydrophilicity values have been assigned to amino acid residues: arginine (+3.0), lysine (+3.0), aspartate (+3.0±1), glutamate (+3.0±1), serine (+0.3), asparagine (+0.2), glutamine (+0.2), glycine (0), threonine (−0.4), proline (−0.5±1), alanine (−0.5), histidine (−0.5), cysteine (−1.0), methionine (−1.3), valine (−1.5), leucine (−1.8), isoleucine (−1.8), tyrosine (−2.3), phenylalanine (−2.5), and tryptophan (−3.4).

In making such changes, the substitution of amino acids whose hydrophilicity values are within ±2 is preferred, those that are within ±1 are particularly preferred, and those within ±0.5 are even more particularly preferred.

In a further aspect of the present invention, one or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the present invention differ in nucleic acid sequence from those for which a specific sequence is provided herein because one or more codons has been replaced with a codon that encodes a conservative substitution of the amino acid originally encoded.

Agents of the invention include nucleic acid molecules that encode at least about a contiguous 10 amino acid region of a polypeptide of the present invention, more preferably at least about a contiguous 25, 40, 50, 100, or 125 amino acid region of a polypeptide of the present invention.

In a preferred embodiment, any of the nucleic acid molecules of the present invention can be operably linked to a promoter region that functions in a plant cell to cause the production of an mRNA molecule, where the nucleic acid molecule that is linked to the promoter is heterologous with respect to that promoter. As used herein, “heterologous” means not naturally occurring together.

Protein and Peptide Molecules

A class of agents includes one or more of the polypeptide molecules encoded by a nucleic acid agent of the invention. A particular preferred class of proteins is that having an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31 and 33-38 and fragments thereof. Polypeptide agents may have C-terminal or N-terminal amino acid sequence extensions. One class of N-terminal extensions employed in a preferred embodiment are plastid transit peptides. When employed, plastid transit peptides can be operatively linked to the N-terminal sequence, thereby permitting the localization of the agent polypeptides to plastids. In a preferred embodiment the plastid targeting sequence is a CTP1 sequence (SEQ ID NO: 32). See WO 00/61771.

In a preferred aspect a protein of the present invention is targeted to a plastid using either a native transit peptide sequence or a heterologous transit peptide sequence. In the case of nucleic acid sequences corresponding to nucleic acid sequences of non-higher plant organisms such as cyanobacteria, such nucleic acid sequences can be modified to attach the coding sequence of the protein to a nucleic acid sequence of a plastid targeting peptide. Examples of cynobacterial nucleic acid sequences that can be so attached are those having amino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 42-45.

As used herein, the term “protein,” “peptide molecule,” or “polypeptide” includes any molecule that comprises five or more amino acids. It is well known in the art that protein, peptide or polypeptide molecules may undergo modification, including posttranslational modifications, such as, but not limited to, disulfide bond formation, glycosylation, phosphorylation, or oligomerization. Thus, as used herein, the term “protein,” “peptide molecule,” or “polypeptide” includes any protein that is modified by any biological or non-biological process. The terms “amino acid” and “amino acids” refer to all naturally occurring L-amino acids. This definition is meant to include norleucine, norvaline, ornithine, homocysteine, and homoserine.

One or more of the protein or fragments thereof, peptide molecules, or polypeptide molecules may be produced via chemical synthesis, or more preferably, by expression in a suitable bacterial or eukaryotic host. Suitable methods for expression are described by Sambrook et al., In: Molecular Cloning, A Laboratory Manual, 2nd Edition, Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1989) or similar texts.

A “protein fragment” is a peptide or polypeptide molecule whose amino acid sequence comprises a subset of the amino acid sequence of that protein. A protein or fragment thereof that comprises one or more additional peptide regions not derived from that protein is a “fusion” protein. Such molecules may be derivatized to contain carbohydrate or other moieties (such as keyhole limpet hemocyanin). Fusion protein or peptide molecules of the invention are preferably produced via recombinant means.

Another class of agents comprise protein, peptide molecules, or polypeptide molecules or fragments or fusions thereof comprising SEQ ID NOs: 19-31 and 33-38 and fragments thereof in which conservative, non-essential or non-relevant amino acid residues have been added, replaced or deleted. Computerized means for designing modifications in protein structure are known in the art (Dahiyat and Mayo, Science 278:82-87 (1997)).

A protein, peptide or polypeptide of the invention can also be a homolog protein, peptide or polypeptide. As used herein, a homolog protein, peptide or polypeptide or fragment thereof is a counterpart protein, peptide or polypeptide or fragment thereof in a second species. A homolog can also be generated by molecular evolution or DNA shuffling techniques, so that the molecule retains at least one functional or structure characteristic of the original (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,811,238).

In another embodiment, the homolog is selected from the group consisting of alfalfa, Arabidopsis, barley, broccoli, cabbage, canola, citrus, cotton, garlic, oat, onion, flax, an ornamental plant, peanut, pepper, potato, rapeseed, rice, rye, sorghum, strawberry, sugarcane, sugarbeet, tomato, wheat, poplar, pine, fir, eucalyptus, apple, lettuce, lentils, grape, banana, tea, turf grasses, sunflower, soybean, corn, and Phaseolus. More particularly, preferred homologs are selected from canola, rapeseed, corn, Brassica campestris, oilseed rape, soybean, crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame, cottonseed, linseed, safflower, oil palm, flax, and sunflower. In an even more preferred embodiment, the homolog is selected from the group consisting of canola, rapeseed, corn, Brassica campestris, oilseed rape, soybean, sunflower, safflower, oil palms, and peanut. In a preferred embodiment, the homolog is soybean. In a preferred embodiment, the homolog is canola. In a preferred embodiment, the homolog is Brassica napus.

In a preferred embodiment, the nucleic acid molecules of the present invention or complements and fragments of either can be utilized to obtain such homologs.

Agents of the invention include proteins and fragments thereof comprising at least about a contiguous 10 amino acid region preferably comprising at least about a contiguous 20 amino acid region, even more preferably comprising at least about a contiguous 25, 35, 50, 75 or 100 amino acid region of a protein of the present invention. In another preferred embodiment, the proteins of the present invention include between about 10 and about 25 contiguous amino acid region, more preferably between about 20 and about 50 contiguous amino acid region, and even more preferably between about 40 and about 80 contiguous amino acid region.

Plant Constructs and Plant Transformants

One or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be used in plant transformation or transfection. Exogenous genetic material may be transferred into a plant cell and the plant cell regenerated into a whole, fertile or sterile plant. Exogenous genetic material is any genetic material, whether naturally occurring or otherwise, from any source that is capable of being inserted into any organism.

In a preferred aspect of the present invention the exogenous genetic material comprises a nucleic acid sequence that encodes a gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase. In a particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention, the exogenous genetic material of the invention comprises a nucleic acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2. In a further aspect of the present invention the exogenous genetic material comprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, 39-41, and 46-49 and fragments thereof.

In another preferred aspect of the present invention the exogenous genetic material comprises a nucleic acid sequence that encodes a 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol/2-methyl-6-solanylplastoquinol-9 methyltransferase. In another preferred aspect of the present invention the exogenous genetic material of the invention comprises a nucleic acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 42-45 and complements thereof and fragments of either. In a further aspect of the present invention the exogenous genetic material comprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs: 46-49 and fragments thereof. In a further aspect of the present invention, the nucleic acid sequences of the invention also encode peptides involved in intracellular localization, export, or posttranslational modification.

In an embodiment of the present invention, exogenous genetic material comprising a GMT or fragment thereof is introduced into a plant with one or more additional genes. In another embodiment of the present invention, exogenous genetic material comprising a MT1 or fragment thereof is introduced into a plant with one or more additional genes. In one embodiment, preferred combinations of genes include two or more of the following genes: tyrA, slr1736, ATPT2, dxs, dxr, GGPPS, HPPD, GMT MT1, tMT2, AANT1, slr 1737, or a plant ortholog and an antisense construct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase (Kridl et al., Seed Sci. Res. 1:209:219 (1991); Keegstra, Cell 56(2):247-53 (1989); Nawrath, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91:12760-12764 (1994); Xia et al., J. Gen. Microbiol. 138:1309-1316 (1992); Cyanobase, www.kazusa.or.jp/cyanobase; Lois et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 95 (5):2105-2110 (1998); Takahashi et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 95 (17), 9879-9884 (1998); Norris et al., Plant Physiol. 117:1317-1323 (1998); Bartley and Scolnik, Plant Physiol. 104:1469-1470 (1994), Smith et al., Plant J. 11: 83-92 (1997); WO 00/32757; WO 00/10380; Saint Guily, et al., Plant Physiol, 100(2):1069-1071 (1992); Sato et al., J. DNA Res. 7 (1):31-63 (2000)). In such combinations, one or more of the gene products can be directed to the plastid by the use of a plastid targeting sequence. Alternatively, one or more of the gene products can be localized in the cytoplasm. In a preferred aspect the gene products of tyrA and HPPD are targeted to the cytoplasm. Such genes can be introduced, for example, with the MT1 or GMT or both or fragment of either or both on a single construct, introduced on different constructs but the same transformation event or introduced into separate plants followed by one or more crosses to generate the desired combination of genes. In such combinations, a preferred promoter is a napin promoter and a preferred plastid targeting sequence is a CTP1 sequence. It is preferred that gene products are targeted to the plastid.

A particularly preferred combination that can be introduced is a nucleic acid molecule encoding a GMT polypeptide and a nucleic acid molecule encoding an MT1 polypeptide, where both polypeptides are targeted to the plastid and where one of such polypeptides is present and the other is introduced. Both nucleic acid sequences encoding such polypeptides are introduced using a single construct, or each polypeptide is introduced on separate constructs.

Another particularly preferred combination that can be introduced is a nucleic acid molecule encoding an MT1 protein and a nucleic acid molecule that results in the down regulation of a GMT protein. In such an aspect, it is preferred that the plant accumulates either γ-tocopherol or γ-tocotrienol or both.

Such genetic material may be transferred into either monocotyledons or dicotyledons including, but not limited to canola, corn, soybean, Arabidopsis phaseolus, peanut, alfalfa, wheat, rice, oat, sorghum, rapeseed, rye, tritordeum, millet, fescue, perennial ryegrass, sugarcane, cranberry, papaya, banana, safflower, oil palms, flax, muskmelon, apple, cucumber, dendrobium, gladiolus, chrysanthemum, liliacea, cotton, eucalyptus, sunflower, Brassica campestris, Brassica napus, turfgrass, sugarbeet, coffee and dioscorea (Christou, In: Particle Bombardment for Genetic Engineering of Plants, Biotechnology Intelligence Unit. Academic Press, San Diego, Calif. (1996)), with canola, corn, Brassica campestris, Brassica napus, rapeseed, soybean, crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame, cottonseed, linseed, safflower, oil palm, flax, and sunflower preferred, and canola, rapeseed, corn, Brassica campestris, Brassica napus, soybean, sunflower, safflower, oil palms, and peanut preferred. In a more preferred embodiment, the genetic material is transferred into canola. In another more preferred embodiment, the genetic material is transferred into Brassica napus. In another particularly preferred embodiment, the genetic material is transferred into soybean. In another particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention, the genetic material is transferred into soybean line 3244.

Transfer of a nucleic acid molecule that encodes a protein can result in expression or overexpression of that polypeptide in a transformed cell or transgenic plant. One or more of the proteins or fragments thereof encoded by nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be overexpressed in a transformed cell or transformed plant. Such expression or overexpression may be the result of transient or stable transfer of the exogenous genetic material.

In a preferred embodiment, expression or overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plant provides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with a similar genetic background, an increased level of tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, expression, or overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plant provides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with a similar genetic background, an increased level of α-tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, expression, or overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plant provides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with a similar genetic background, an increased level of γ-tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression, or overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plant provides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with a similar genetic background, an increased level of δ-tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression or overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plant provides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with a similar genetic background, an increased level of tocotrienols.

In a preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression, or overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plant provides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with a similar genetic background, an increased level of α-tocotrienols.

In a preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression, or overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plant provides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with a similar genetic background, an increased level of γ-tocotrienols.

In a preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression, or overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plant provides in that plant, relative to an untransformed plant with a similar genetic background, an increased level of δ-tocotrienols.

In another embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression, overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a plant provides in that plant, or a tissue of that plant, relative to an untransformed plant or plant tissue, with a similar genetic background, an increased level of an MT1 or GMT protein or both or fragment of either.

In some embodiments, the levels of one or more products of the tocopherol biosynthesis pathway, including any one or more of tocopherols, α-tocopherols, γ-tocopherols, δ-tocopherols, β-tocopherols, tocotrienols, α-tocotrienols, γ-tocotrienols, δ-tocotrienols, β-tocotrienols, are increased by greater than about 10%, or more preferably greater than about 25%, 50%, 200%, 1,000%, 2,000%, 2,500% or 25,000%. The levels of products may be increased throughout an organism such as a plant or localized in one or more specific organs or tissues of the organism. For example the levels of products may be increased in one or more of the tissues and organs of a plant including without limitation: roots, tubers, stems, leaves, stalks, fruit, berries, nuts, bark, pods, seeds and flowers. A preferred organ is a seed.

In some embodiments, the levels of tocopherols or a species such as α-tocopherol may be altered. In some embodiments, the levels of tocotrienols may be altered. Such alteration can be compared to a plant with a similar background.

In another embodiment, either the α-tocopherol level, α-tocotrienol level, or both of plants that natively produce high levels of either α-tocopherol, α-tocotrienol or both (e.g., sunflowers), can be increased by the introduction of a gene coding for an MT1 enzyme.

In a preferred aspect, a similar genetic background is a background where the organisms being compared share about 50% or greater of their nuclear genetic material. In a more preferred aspect a similar genetic background is a background where the organisms being compared share about 75% or greater, even more preferably about 90% or greater of their nuclear genetic material. In another even more preferable aspect, a similar genetic background is a background where the organisms being compared are plants, and the plants are isogenic except for any genetic material originally introduced using plant transformation techniques.

In another preferred embodiment, reduction of the expression, expression, overexpression of a polypeptide of the present invention in a transformed plant may provide tolerance to a variety of stress, e.g. oxidative stress tolerance such as to oxygen or ozone, UV tolerance, cold tolerance, or fungal/microbial pathogen tolerance.

As used herein in a preferred aspect, a tolerance or resistance to stress is determined by the ability of a plant, when challenged by a stress such as cold to produce a plant having a higher yield than one without such tolerance or resistance to stress. In a particularly preferred aspect of the present invention, the tolerance or resistance to stress is measured relative to a plant with a similar genetic background to the tolerant or resistance plant except that the plant reduces the expression, expresses or over expresses a protein or fragment thereof of the present invention.

Exogenous genetic material may be transferred into a host cell by the use of a DNA vector or construct designed for such a purpose. Design of such a vector is generally within the skill of the art (See, Plant Molecular Biology: A Laboratory Manual, Clark (ed.), Springer, New York (1997)).

A construct or vector may include a plant promoter to express the polypeptide of choice. In a preferred embodiment, any nucleic acid molecules described herein can be operably linked to a promoter region which functions in a plant cell to cause the production of an mRNA molecule. For example, any promoter that functions in a plant cell to cause the production of an mRNA molecule, such as those promoters described herein, without limitation, can be used. In a preferred embodiment, the promoter is a plant promoter.

A number of promoters that are active in plant cells have been described in the literature. These include the nopaline synthase (NOS) promoter (Ebert et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A) 84:5745-5749 (1987)), the octopine synthase (OCS) promoter (which is carried on tumor-inducing plasmids of Agrobacterium tumefaciens), the caulimovirus promoters such as the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 19S promoter (Lawton et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 9:315-324 (1987)) and the CaMV 35S promoter (Odell et al., Nature 313:810-812 (1985)), the figwort mosaic virus 35S-promoter, the light-inducible promoter from the small subunit of ribulose-1,5-bis-phosphate carboxylase (ssRUBISCO), the Adh promoter (Walker et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 84:6624-6628 (1987)), the sucrose synthase promoter (Yang et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 87:4144-4148 (1990)), the R gene complex promoter (Chandler et al., The Plant Cell 1:1175-1183 (1989)) and the chlorophyll a/b binding protein gene promoter, etc. These promoters have been used to create DNA constructs that have been expressed in plants; see, e.g., PCT publication WO 84/02913. The CaMV 35S promoters are preferred for use in plants. Promoters known or found to cause transcription of DNA in plant cells can be used in the invention.

For the purpose of expression in source tissues of the plant, such as the leaf, seed, root or stem, it is preferred that the promoters utilized have relatively high expression in these specific tissues. Tissue-specific expression of a protein of the present invention is a particularly preferred embodiment. For this purpose, one may choose from a number of promoters for genes with tissue- or cell-specific or enhanced expression. Examples of such promoters reported in the literature include the chloroplast glutamine synthetase GS2 promoter from pea (Edwards et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 87:3459-3463 (1990)), the chloroplast fructose-1,6-biphosphatase (FBPase) promoter from wheat (Lloyd et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 225:209-216 (1991)), the nuclear photosynthetic ST-LS1 promoter from potato (Stockhaus et al., EMBO J. 8:2445-2451 (1989)), the serine/threonine kinase (PAL) promoter and the glucoamylase (CHS) promoter from Arabidopsis thaliana. Also reported to be active in photosynthetically active tissues are the ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (RbcS) promoter from eastern larch (Larix laricina), the promoter for the cab gene, cab6, from pine (Yamamoto et al., Plant Cell Physiol. 35:773-778 (1994)), the promoter for the Cab-1 gene from wheat (Fejes et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 15:921-932 (1990)), the promoter for the CAB-1 gene from spinach (Lubberstedt et al., Plant Physiol. 104:997-1006 (1994)), the promoter for the cab1R gene from rice (Luan et al., Plant Cell. 4:971-981 (1992)), the pyruvate, orthophosphate dikinase (PPDK) promoter from corn (Matsuoka et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 90: 9586-9590 (1993)), the promoter for the tobacco Lhcb1*2 gene (Cerdan et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 33:245-255 (1997)), the Arabidopsis thaliana SUC2 sucrose-H+ symporter promoter (Truernit et al., Planta. 196:564-570 (1995)) and the promoter for the thylakoid membrane proteins from spinach (psaD, psaF, psaE, PC, FNR, atpC, atpD, cab, rbcS). Other promoters for the chlorophyll a/b-binding proteins may also be utilized in the invention, such as the promoters for LhcB gene and PsbP gene from white mustard (Sinapis alba; Kretsch et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 28:219-229 (1995)).

For the purpose of expression in sink tissues of the plant, such as the tuber of the potato plant, the fruit of tomato, or the seed of corn, wheat, rice and barley, it is preferred that the promoters utilized in the invention have relatively high expression in these specific tissues. A number of promoters for genes with tuber-specific or tuber-enhanced expression are known, including the class I patatin promoter (Bevan et al., EMBO J. 8:1899-1906 (1986); Jefferson et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 14:995-1006 (1990)), the promoter for the potato tuber ADPGPP genes, both the large and small subunits, the sucrose synthase promoter (Salanoubat and Belliard, Gene 60:47-56 (1987), Salanoubat and Belliard, Gene 84:181-185 (1989)), the promoter for the major tuber proteins including the 22 kd protein complexes and protease inhibitors (Hannapel, Plant Physiol. 101:703-704 (1993)), the promoter for the granule-bound starch synthase gene (GBSS) (Visser et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 17:691-699 (1991)) and other class I and II patatins promoters (Koster-Topfer et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 219:390-396 (1989); Mignery et al., Gene. 62:27-44 (1988)).

Other promoters can also be used to express a polypeptide in specific tissues, such as seeds or fruits. Indeed, in a preferred embodiment, the promoter used is a seed specific promoter. Examples of such promoters include the 5′ regulatory regions from such genes as napin (Kridl et al., Seed Sci. Res. 1:209:219 (1991)), phaseolin (Bustos, et al., Plant Cell, 1(9):839-853 (1989)), soybean trypsin inhibitor (Riggs, et al., Plant Cell 1(6):609-621 (1989)), ACP (Baerson, et al., Plant Mol. Biol., 22(2):255-267 (1993)), stearoyl-ACP desaturase (Slocombe, et al., Plant Physiol. 104(4):167-176 (1994)), soybean α′ subunit of β-conglycinin (soy 7s, (Chen et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 83:8560-8564 (1986))), and oleosin (see, for example, Hong, et al., Plant Mol. Biol., 34(3):549-555 (1997)). Further examples include the promoter for β-conglycinin (Chen et al., Dev. Genet. 10: 112-122 (1989)). Also included are the zeins, which are a group of storage proteins found in corn endosperm. Genomic clones for zein genes have been isolated (Pedersen et al., Cell 29:1015-1026 (1982), and Russell et al., Transgenic Res. 6(2):157-168) and the promoters from these clones, including the 15 kD, 16 kD, 19 kD, 22 kD, 27 kD and genes, could also be used. Other promoters known to function, for example, in corn include the promoters for the following genes: waxy, Brittle, Shrunken 2, Branching enzymes I and II, starch synthases, debranching enzymes, oleosins, glutelins and sucrose synthases. A particularly preferred promoter for corn endosperm expression is the promoter for the glutelin gene from rice, more particularly the Osgt-1 promoter (Zheng et al., Mol. Cell. Biol. 13:5829-5842 (1993)). Examples of promoters suitable for expression in wheat include those promoters for the ADPglucose pyrosynthase (ADPGPP) subunits, the granule bound and other starch synthase, the branching and debranching enzymes, the embryogenesis-abundant proteins, the gliadins and the glutenins. Examples of such promoters in rice include those promoters for the ADPGPP subunits, the granule bound and other starch synthase, the branching enzymes, the debranching enzymes, sucrose synthases and the glutelins. A particularly preferred promoter is the promoter for rice glutelin, Osgt-1. Examples of such promoters for barley include those for the ADPGPP subunits, the granule bound and other starch synthase, the branching enzymes, the debranching enzymes, sucrose synthases, the hordeins, the embryo globulins and the aleurone specific proteins. A preferred promoter for expression in the seed is a napin promoter. Another preferred promoter for expression is an Arcelin 5 promoter.

Root specific promoters may also be used. An example of such a promoter is the promoter for the acid chitinase gene (Samac et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 25:587-596 (1994)). Expression in root tissue could also be accomplished by utilizing the root specific subdomains of the CaMV35S promoter that have been identified (Lam et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 86:7890-7894 (1989)). Other root cell specific promoters include those reported by Conkling et al. (Conkling et al., Plant Physiol. 93:1203-1211 (1990)).

Additional promoters that may be utilized are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,378,619; 5,391,725; 5,428,147; 5,447,858; 5,608,144; 5,608,144; 5,614,399; 5,633,441; 5,633,435; and 4,633,436. In addition, a tissue specific enhancer may be used (Fromm et al., The Plant Cell 1:977-984 (1989)).

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, a nucleic acid molecule having a sequence encoding either a GMT or an MT1 enzyme is linked to a P7 or Arcelin 5 promoter. In a particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention, the promoter comprises a nucleic acid molecule having a sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NOs 81 and 82. In a particularly preferred embodiment, the invention relates to a soybean line 3244 plant, comprising an exogenous nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence selected of SEQ ID NO: 2, operably linked to a nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleotide sequence selected from the group consisting of SEQ ID NO: 81 and 82.

Constructs or vectors may also include, with the coding region of interest, a nucleic acid sequence that acts, in whole or in part, to terminate transcription of that region. A number of such sequences have been isolated, including the Tr7 3′ sequence and the NOS 3′ sequence (Ingelbrecht et al., The Plant Cell 1:671-680 (1989); Bevan et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 11:369-385 (1983)). Regulatory transcript termination regions can be provided in plant expression constructs of this invention as well. Transcript termination regions can be provided by the DNA sequence encoding the gene of interest or a convenient transcription termination region derived from a different gene source, for example, the transcript termination region that is naturally associated with the transcript initiation region. The skilled artisan will recognize that any convenient transcript termination region that is capable of terminating transcription in a plant cell can be employed in the constructs of the present invention.

A vector or construct may also include regulatory elements. Examples of such include the Adh intron 1 (Callis et al., Genes and Develop. 1:1183-1200 (1987)), the sucrose synthase intron (Vasil et al., Plant Physiol. 91:1575-1579 (1989)) and the TMV omega element (Gallie et al., The Plant Cell 1.301-311 (1989)). These and other regulatory elements may be included when appropriate.

A vector or construct may also include a selectable marker. Selectable markers may also be used to select for plants or plant cells that contain the exogenous genetic material. Examples of such include, but are not limited to: a neo gene (Potrykus et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 199:183-188 (1985)), which codes for kanamycin resistance and can be selected for using kanamycin, RptII, G418, hpt etc.; a bar gene which codes for bialaphos resistance; a mutant EPSP synthase gene (Hinchee et al., Bio/Technology 6:915-922 (1988); Reynaerts et al., Selectable and Screenable Markers. In Gelvin and Schilperoort. Plant Molecular Biology Manual, Kluwer, Dordrecht (1988); Reynaerts et al., Selectable and screenable markers. In Gelvin and Schilperoort. Plant Molecular Biology Manual, Kluwer, Dordrecht (1988)), aadA (Jones et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. (1987)),) which encodes glyphosate resistance; a nitrilase gene which confers resistance to bromoxynil (Stalker et al., J. Biol. Chem. 263:6310-6314 (1988)); a mutant acetolactate synthase gene (ALS) which confers imidazolinone or sulphonylurea resistance (European Patent Application 154,204 (Sep. 11, 1985)), ALS (D'Halluin et al., Bio/Technology 10: 309-314 (1992)), and a methotrexate resistant DHFR gene (Thillet et al., J. Biol. Chem. 263:12500-12508 (1988)).

A vector or construct may also include a transit peptide. Incorporation of a suitable chloroplast transit peptide may also be employed (European Patent Application Publication Number 0218571). Translational enhancers may also be incorporated as part of the vector DNA. DNA constructs could contain one or more 5′ non-translated leader sequences, which may serve to enhance expression of the gene products from the resulting mRNA transcripts. Such sequences may be derived from the promoter selected to express the gene or can be specifically modified to increase translation of the mRNA. Such regions may also be obtained from viral RNAs, from suitable eukaryotic genes, or from a synthetic gene sequence. For a review of optimizing expression of transgenes, see Koziel et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 32:393-405 (1996). A preferred transit peptide is CTP1.

A vector or construct may also include a screenable marker. Screenable markers may be used to monitor expression. Exemplary screenable markers include: a β-glucuronidase or uidA gene (GUS) which encodes an enzyme for which various chromogenic substrates are known (Jefferson, Plant Mol. Biol, Rep. 5:387-405 (1987); Jefferson et al., EMBO J. 6:3901-3907 (1987)); an R-locus gene, which encodes a product that regulates the production of anthocyanin pigments (red color) in plant tissues (Dellaporta et al., Stadler Symposium 11:263-282 (1988)); a β-lactamase gene (Sutcliffe et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 75:3737-3741 (1978)), a gene which encodes an enzyme for which various chromogenic substrates are known (e.g., PADAC, a chromogenic cephalosporin); a luciferase gene (Ow et al., Science 234:856-859 (1986)); a xylE gene (Zukowsky et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 80:1101-1105 (1983)) which encodes a catechol dioxygenase that can convert chromogenic catechols; an α-amylase gene (Ikatu et al., Bio/Technol. 8:241-242 (1990)); a tyrosinase gene (Katz et al., J. Gen. Microbiol. 129:2703-2714 (1983)) which encodes an enzyme capable of oxidizing tyrosine to DOPA and dopaquinone which in turn condenses to melanin; an α-galactosidase, which will turn a chromogenic α-galactose substrate.

Included within the terms “selectable or screenable marker genes” are also genes that encode a secretable marker whose secretion can be detected as a means of identifying or selecting for transformed cells. Examples include markers that encode a secretable antigen that can be identified by antibody interaction, or even secretable enzymes that can be detected catalytically. Secretable proteins fall into a number of classes, including small, diffusible proteins that are detectable, (e.g., by ELISA), small active enzymes that are detectable in extracellular solution (e.g., α-amylase, β-lactamase, phosphinothricin transferase), or proteins that are inserted or trapped in the cell wall (such as proteins that include a leader sequence such as that found in the expression unit of extension or tobacco PR-S). Other possible selectable and/or screenable marker genes will be apparent to those of skill in the art.

There are many methods for introducing transforming nucleic acid molecules into plant cells. Suitable methods are believed to include virtually any method by which nucleic acid molecules may be introduced into a cell, such as by Agrobacterium infection or direct delivery of nucleic acid molecules such as, for example, by PEG-mediated transformation, by electroporation or by acceleration of DNA coated particles, and the like. (Potrykus, Ann. Rev. Plant Physiol. Plant Mol. Biol. 42:205-225 (1991); Vasil, Plant Mol. Biol. 25:925-937 (1994)). For example, electroporation has been used to transform corn protoplasts (Fromm et al., Nature 312:791-793 (1986)).

Other vector systems suitable for introducing transforming DNA into a host plant cell include but are not limited to binary artificial chromosome (BIBAC) vectors (Hamilton et al., Gene 200:107-116 (1997)); and transfection with RNA viral vectors (Della-Cioppa et al., Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. (1996), 792 (Engineering Plants for Commercial Products and Applications), 57-61). Additional vector systems also include plant selectable YAC vectors such as those described in Mullen et al., Molecular Breeding 4:449-457 (1988).

Technology for introduction of DNA into cells is well known to those of skill in the art. Four general methods for delivering a gene into cells have been described: (1) chemical methods (Graham and van der Eb, Virology 54:536-539 (1973)); (2) physical methods such as microinjection (Capecchi, Cell 22:479-488 (1980)), electroporation (Wong and Neumann, Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 107:584-587 (1982); Fromm et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 82:5824-5828 (1985); U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,253); the gene gun (Johnston and Tang, Methods Cell Biol. 43:353-365 (1994)); and vacuum infiltration (Bechtold et al., C.R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Life Sci. 316:1194-1199. (1993)); (3) viral vectors (Clapp, Clin. Perinatol. 20:155-168 (1993); Lu et al., J. Exp. Med. 178:2089-2096 (1993); Eglitis and Anderson, Biotechniques 6:608-614 (1988)); and (4) receptor-mediated mechanisms (Curiel et al., Hum. Gen. Ther. 3:147-154 (1992), Wagner et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 89:6099-6103 (1992)).

Acceleration methods that may be used include, for example, microprojectile bombardment and the like. One example of a method for delivering transforming nucleic acid molecules into plant cells is microprojectile bombardment. This method has been reviewed by Yang and Christou (eds.), Particle Bombardment Technology for Gene Transfer, Oxford Press, Oxford, England (1994)). Non-biological particles (microprojectiles) may be coated with nucleic acids and delivered into cells by a propelling force. Exemplary particles include those comprised of tungsten, gold, platinum and the like.

A particular advantage of microprojectile bombardment, in addition to it being an effective means of reproducibly transforming monocots, is that neither the isolation of protoplasts (Cristou et al., Plant Physiol. 87:671-674 (1988)) nor the susceptibility to Agrobacterium infection is required. An illustrative embodiment of a method for delivering DNA into corn cells by acceleration is a biolistics α-particle delivery system, which can be used to propel particles coated with DNA through a screen, such as a stainless steel or Nytex screen, onto a filter surface covered with corn cells cultured in suspension. Gordon-Kamm et al., describes the basic procedure for coating tungsten particles with DNA (Gordon-Kamm et al., Plant Cell 2:603-618 (1990)). The screen disperses the tungsten nucleic acid particles so that they are not delivered to the recipient cells in large aggregates. A particle delivery system suitable for use with the invention is the helium acceleration PDS-1000/He gun, which is available from Bio-Rad Laboratories (Bio-Rad, Hercules, Calif.)(Sanford et al., Technique 3:3-16 (1991)).

For the bombardment, cells in suspension may be concentrated on filters. Filters containing the cells to be bombarded are positioned at an appropriate distance below the microprojectile stopping plate. If desired, one or more screens are also positioned between the gun and the cells to be bombarded.

Alternatively, immature embryos or other target cells may be arranged on solid culture medium. The cells to be bombarded are positioned at an appropriate distance below the microprojectile stopping plate. If desired, one or more screens are also positioned between the acceleration device and the cells to be bombarded. Through the use of techniques set forth herein one may obtain 1000 or more loci of cells transiently expressing a marker gene. The number of cells in a focus that express the exogenous gene product 48 hours post-bombardment often ranges from one to ten, and average one to three.

In bombardment transformation, one may optimize the pre-bombardment culturing conditions and the bombardment parameters to yield the maximum numbers of stable transformants. Both the physical and biological parameters for bombardment are important in this technology. Physical factors are those that involve manipulating the DNA/microprojectile precipitate or those that affect the flight and velocity of either the macro- or microprojectiles. Biological factors include all steps involved in manipulation of cells before and immediately after bombardment, the osmotic adjustment of target cells to help alleviate the trauma associated with bombardment and also the nature of the transforming DNA, such as linearized DNA or intact supercoiled plasmids. It is believed that pre-bombardment manipulations are especially important for successful transformation of immature embryos.

In another alternative embodiment, plastids can be stably transformed. Methods disclosed for plastid transformation in higher plants include the particle gun delivery of DNA containing a selectable marker and targeting of the DNA to the plastid genome through homologous recombination (Svab et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A) 87:8526-8530 (1990); Svab and Maliga, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 90:913-917 (1993); Staub and Maliga, EMBO J. 12:601-606 (1993); U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,451,513 and 5,545,818).

Accordingly, it is contemplated that one may wish to adjust various aspects of the bombardment parameters in small scale studies to fully optimize the conditions. One may particularly wish to adjust physical parameters such as gap distance, flight distance, tissue distance and helium pressure. One may also minimize the trauma reduction factors by modifying conditions that influence the physiological state of the recipient cells and which may therefore influence transformation and integration efficiencies. For example, the osmotic state, tissue hydration and the subculture stage or cell cycle of the recipient cells may be adjusted for optimum transformation. The execution of other routine adjustments will be known to those of skill in the art in light of the present disclosure.

Agrobacterium-mediated transfer is a widely applicable system for introducing genes into plant cells because the DNA can be introduced into whole plant tissues, thereby bypassing the need for regeneration of an intact plant from a protoplast. The use of Agrobacterium-mediated plant integrating vectors to introduce DNA into plant cells is well known in the art. See, for example the methods described by Fraley et al., Bio/Technology 3:629-635 (1985) and Rogers et al., Methods Enzymol. 153:253-277 (1987). Further, the integration of the Ti-DNA is a relatively precise process resulting in few rearrangements. The region of DNA to be transferred is defined by the border sequences and intervening DNA is usually inserted into the plant genome as described (Spielmann et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 205:34 (1986)).

Modern Agrobacterium transformation vectors are capable of replication in E. coli as well as Agrobacterium, allowing for convenient manipulations as described (Klee et al., In: Plant DNA Infectious Agents, Hohn and Schell (eds.), Springer-Verlag, New York, pp. 179-203 (1985)). Moreover, technological advances in vectors for Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer have improved the arrangement of genes and restriction sites in the vectors to facilitate construction of vectors capable of expressing various polypeptide coding genes. The vectors described have convenient multi-linker regions flanked by a promoter and a polyadenylation site for direct expression of inserted polypeptide coding genes and are suitable for present purposes (Rogers et al., Methods Enzymol. 153:253-277 (1987)). In addition, Agrobacterium containing both armed and disarmed Ti genes can be used for the transformations. In those plant strains where Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is efficient, it is the method of choice because of the facile and defined nature of the gene transfer.

A transgenic plant formed using Agrobacterium transformation methods typically contains a single gene on one chromosome. Such transgenic plants can be referred to as being heterozygous for the added gene. More preferred is a transgenic plant that is homozygous for the added structural gene; i.e., a transgenic plant that contains two added genes, one gene at the same locus on each chromosome of a chromosome pair. A homozygous transgenic plant can be obtained by sexually mating (selfing) an independent segregant, transgenic plant that contains a single added gene, germinating some of the seed produced and analyzing the resulting plants produced for the gene of interest.

It is also to be understood that two different transgenic plants can also be mated to produce offspring that contain two independently segregating, exogenous genes. Selfing of appropriate progeny can produce plants that are homozygous for both added, exogenous genes that encode a polypeptide of interest. Back-crossing to a parental plant and out-crossing with a non-transgenic plant are also contemplated, as is vegetative propagation.

Transformation of plant protoplasts can be achieved using methods based on calcium phosphate precipitation, polyethylene glycol treatment, electroporation and combinations of these treatments (See, for example, Potrykus et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 205:193-200 (1986); Lorz et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 199:178 (1985); Fromm et al., Nature 319:791 (1986); Uchimiya et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 204:204 (1986); Marcotte et al., Nature 335:454-457 (1988)).

Application of these systems to different plant strains depends upon the ability to regenerate that particular plant strain from protoplasts. Illustrative methods for the regeneration of cereals from protoplasts are described (Fujimura et al., Plant Tissue Culture Letters 2:74 (1985); Toriyama et al., Theor. Appl. Genet. 205:34 (1986); Yamada et al., Plant Cell Rep. 4:85 (1986); Abdullah et al., Biotechnology 4:1087 (1986)).

To transform plant strains that cannot be successfully regenerated from protoplasts, other ways to introduce DNA into intact cells or tissues can be utilized. For example, regeneration of cereals from immature embryos or explants can be effected as described (Vasil, Biotechnology 6:397 (1988)). In addition, “particle gun” or high-velocity microprojectile technology can be utilized (Vasil et al., Bio/Technology 10:667 (1992)).

Using the latter technology, DNA is carried through the cell wall and into the cytoplasm on the surface of small metal particles as described (Klein et al., Nature 328:70 (1987); Klein et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 85:8502-8505 (1988); McCabe et al., Bio/Technology 6:923 (1988)). The metal particles penetrate through several layers of cells and thus allow the transformation of cells within tissue explants.

Other methods of cell transformation can also be used and include but are not limited to introduction of DNA into plants by direct DNA transfer into pollen (Hess et al., Intern Rev. Cytol. 107:367 (1987); Luo et al., Plant Mol. Biol. Reporter 6:165 (1988)), by direct injection of DNA into reproductive organs of a plant (Pena et al., Nature 325:274 (1987)), or by direct injection of DNA into the cells of immature embryos followed by the rehydration of desiccated embryos (Neuhaus et al., Theor. Appl. Genet. 75:30 (1987)).

The regeneration, development and cultivation of plants from single plant protoplast transformants or from various transformed explants is well known in the art (Weissbach and Weissbach, In: Methods for Plant Molecular Biology, Academic Press, San Diego, Calif., (1988)). This regeneration and growth process typically includes the steps of selection of transformed cells, culturing those individualized cells through the usual stages of embryonic development through the rooted plantlet stage. Transgenic embryos and seeds are similarly regenerated. The resulting transgenic rooted shoots are thereafter planted in an appropriate plant growth medium such as soil.

The development or regeneration of plants containing the foreign, exogenous gene that encodes a protein of interest is well known in the art. Preferably, the regenerated plants are self-pollinated to provide homozygous transgenic plants. Otherwise, pollen obtained from the regenerated plants is crossed to seed-grown plants of agronomically important lines. Conversely, pollen from plants of these important lines is used to pollinate regenerated plants. A transgenic plant of the invention containing a desired polypeptide is cultivated using methods well known to one skilled in the art.

There are a variety of methods for the regeneration of plants from plant tissue. The particular method of regeneration will depend on the starting plant tissue and the particular plant species to be regenerated.

Methods for transforming dicots, primarily by use of Agrobacterium tumefaciens and obtaining transgenic plants have been published for cotton (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,004,863; 5,159,135; 5,518,908); soybean (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,569,834; 5,416,011; McCabe et al., Biotechnology 6:923 (1988); Christou et al., Plant Physiol. 87:671-674 (1988)); Brassica (U.S. Pat. No. 5,463,174); peanut (Cheng et al., Plant Cell Rep. 15:653-657 (1996), McKently et al., Plant Cell Rep. 14:699-703 (1995)); papaya; pea (Grant et al., Plant Cell Rep. 15:254-258 (1995)); and Arabidopsis thaliana (Bechtold et al., C.R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Life Sci. 316:1194-1199 (1993)). The latter method for transforming Arabidopsis thaliana is commonly called “dipping” or vacuum infiltration or germplasm transformation.

Transformation of monocotyledons using electroporation, particle bombardment and Agrobacterium have also been reported. Transformation and plant regeneration have been achieved in asparagus (Bytebier et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 84:5354 (1987)); barley (Wan and Lemaux, Plant Physiol 104:37 (1994)); corn (Rhodes et al., Science 240:204 (1988); Gordon-Kamm et al., Plant Cell 2:603-618 (1990); Fromm et al., Bio/Technology 8:833 (1990); Koziel et al., Bio/Technology 11:194 (1993); Armstrong et al., Crop Science 35:550-557 (1995)); oat (Somers et al., Bio/Technology 10:1589 (1992)); orchard grass (Horn et al., Plant Cell Rep. 7:469 (1988)); rice (Toriyama et al., Theor Appl. Genet. 205:34 (1986); Part et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 32:1135-1148 (1996); Abedinia et al., Aust. J. Plant Physiol. 24:133-141 (1997); Zhang and Wu, Theor. Appl. Genet. 76:835 (1988); Zhang et al., Plant Cell Rep. 7:379 (1988); Battraw and Hall, Plant Sci. 86:191-202 (1992); Christou et al., Bio/Technology 9:957 (1991)); rye (De la Pena et al., Nature 325:274 (1987)); sugarcane (Bower and Birch, Plant J. 2:409 (1992)); tall fescue (Wang et al., Bio/Technology 10:691 (1992)) and wheat (Vasil et al., Bio/Technology 10:667 (1992); U.S. Pat. No. 5,631,152).

Assays for gene expression based on the transient expression of cloned nucleic acid constructs have been developed by introducing the nucleic acid molecules into plant cells by polyethylene glycol treatment, electroporation, or particle bombardment (Marcotte et al., Nature 335:454-457 (1988); Marcotte et al., Plant Cell 1:523-532 (1989); McCarty et al., Cell 66:895-905 (1991); Hattori et al., Genes Dev. 6:609-618 (1992); Goff et al., EMBO J. 9:2517-2522 (1990)). Transient expression systems may be used to functionally dissect gene constructs (see generally, Mailga et al., Methods in Plant Molecular Biology, Cold Spring Harbor Press (1995)).

Any of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be introduced into a plant cell in a permanent or transient manner in combination with other genetic elements such as vectors, promoters, enhancers, etc. Further, any of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be introduced into a plant cell in a manner that allows for expression or overexpression of the protein or fragment thereof encoded by the nucleic acid molecule.

Cosuppression is the reduction in expression levels, usually at the level of RNA, of a particular endogenous gene or gene family by the expression of a homologous sense construct that is capable of transcribing mRNA of the same strandedness as the transcript of the endogenous gene (Napoli et al., Plant Cell 2:279-289 (1990); van der Krol et al., Plant Cell 2:291-299 (1990)). Cosuppression may result from stable transformation with a single copy nucleic acid molecule that is homologous to a nucleic acid sequence found with the cell (Prolls and Meyer, Plant J. 2:465-475 (1992)) or with multiple copies of a nucleic acid molecule that is homologous to a nucleic acid sequence found with the cell (Mittlesten et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 244:325-330 (1994)). Genes, even though different, linked to homologous promoters may result in the cosuppression of the linked genes (Vaucheret, C.R. Acad. Sci. III 316:1471-1483 (1993); Flavell, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 91:3490-3496 (1994)); van Blokland et al., Plant J. 6:861-877 (1994); Jorgensen, Trends Biotechnol. 8:340-344 (1990); Meins and Kunz, In: Gene Inactivation and Homologous Recombination in Plants, Paszkowski (ed.), pp. 335-348, Kluwer Academic, Netherlands (1994)).

It is understood that one or more of the nucleic acids of the invention may be introduced into a plant cell and transcribed using an appropriate promoter with such transcription resulting in the cosuppression of an endogenous protein.

Antisense approaches are a way of preventing or reducing gene function by targeting the genetic material (Mol et al., FEBS Lett. 268:427-430 (1990)). The objective of the antisense approach is to use a sequence complementary to the target gene to block its expression and create a mutant cell line or organism in which the level of a single chosen protein is selectively reduced or abolished. Antisense techniques have several advantages over other ‘reverse genetic’ approaches. The site of inactivation and its developmental effect can be manipulated by the choice promoter for antisense genes or by the timing of external application or microinjection can manipulate its specificity by selecting either unique regions of the target gene or regions where it shares homology to other related genes (Hiatt et al., In: Genetic Engineering, Setlow (ed.), Vol. 11, New York: Plenum 49-63 (1989)).

Antisense RNA techniques involve introduction of RNA that is complementary to the target mRNA into cells, which results in specific RNA:RNA duplexes being formed by base pairing between the antisense substrate and the target mRNA (Green et al., Annu. Rev. Biochem. 55:569-597 (1986)). Under one embodiment, the process involves the introduction and expression of an antisense gene sequence. Such a sequence is one in which part or all of the normal gene sequences are placed under a promoter in inverted orientation so that the ‘wrong’ or complementary strand is transcribed into a noncoding antisense RNA that hybridizes with the target mRNA and interferes with its expression (Takayama and Inouye, Crit. Rev. Biochem. Mol. Biol. 25:155-184 (1990)). An antisense vector is constructed by standard procedures and introduced into cells by transformation, transfection, electroporation, microinjection, infection, etc. The type of transformation and choice of vector will determine whether expression is transient or stable. The promoter used for the antisense gene may influence the level, timing, tissue, specificity, or inducibility of the antisense inhibition.

It is understood that the activity of a protein in a plant cell may be reduced or depressed by growing a transformed plant cell containing a nucleic acid molecule whose non-transcribed strand encodes a protein or fragment thereof. Preferred proteins whose activity can be reduced or depressed, by any method, are MT1 and homogenistic acid dehydrogenase. In such an embodiment of the invention, it is preferred that the concentration of γ-tocopherol or γ-tocotrienol is increased.

Posttranscriptional gene silencing (PTGS) can result in virus immunity or gene silencing in plants. PTGS is induced by dsRNA and is mediated by an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, present in the cytoplasm, which requires a dsRNA template. The dsRNA is formed by hybridization of complementary transgene mRNAs or complementary regions of the same transcript. Duplex formation can be accomplished by using transcripts from one sense gene and one antisense gene colocated in the plant genome, a single transcript that has self-complementarity, or sense and antisense transcripts from genes brought together by crossing. The dsRNA-dependent RNA polymerase makes a complementary strand from the transgene mRNA and RNAse molecules attach to this complementary strand (cRNA). These cRNA-RNase molecules hybridize to the endogene mRNA and cleave the single-stranded RNA adjacent to the hybrid. The cleaved single-stranded RNAs are further degraded by other host RNases because one will lack a capped 5′ end and the other will lack a poly(A) tail (Waterhouse et al., PNAS 95: 13959-13964 (1998)).

It is understood that one or more of the nucleic acids of the invention may be introduced into a plant cell and transcribed using an appropriate promoter with such transcription resulting in the posttranscriptional gene silencing of an endogenous transcript.

Antibodies have been expressed in plants (Hiatt et al., Nature 342:76-78 (1989); Conrad and Fielder, Plant Mol. Biol. 26:1023-1030 (1994)). Cytoplasmic expression of a scFv (single-chain Fv antibody) has been reported to delay infection by artichoke mottled crinkle virus. Transgenic plants that express antibodies directed against endogenous proteins may exhibit a physiological effect (Philips et al., EMBO J. 16:4489-4496 (1997); Marion-Poll, Trends in Plant Science 2:447-448 (1997)). For example, expressed anti-abscisic antibodies have been reported to result in a general perturbation of seed development (Philips et al., EMBO J. 16: 4489-4496 (1997)).

Antibodies that are catalytic may also be expressed in plants (abzymes). The principle behind abzymes is that since antibodies may be raised against many molecules, this recognition ability can be directed toward generating antibodies that bind transition states to force a chemical reaction forward (Persidas, Nature Biotechnology 15:1313-1315 (1997); Baca et al., Ann. Rev. Biophys. Biomol. Struct. 26:461-493 (1997)). The catalytic abilities of abzymes may be enhanced by site directed mutagenesis. Examples of abzymes are, for example, set forth in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,658,753; 5,632,990; 5,631,137; 5,602,015; 5,559,538; 5,576,174; 5,500,358; 5,318,897; 5,298,409; 5,258,289 and 5,194,585.

It is understood that any of the antibodies of the invention may be expressed in plants and that such expression can result in a physiological effect. It is also understood that any of the expressed antibodies may be catalytic.

The present invention also provides for parts of the plants, particularly reproductive or storage parts, of the present invention. Plant parts, without limitation, include seed, endosperm, ovule and pollen. In a particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention, the plant part is a seed. In one embodiment the seed is a constituent of animal feed.

In another embodiment, the plant part is a fruit, more preferably a fruit with enhanced shelf life. In another preferred embodiment, the fruit has increased levels of a tocopherol. In another preferred embodiment, the fruit has increased levels of a tocotrienol.

The present invention also provides a container of over about 10,000, more preferably about 20,000, and even more preferably about 40,000 seeds where over about 10%, more preferably about 25%, more preferably about 50% and even more preferably about 75% or 90% of the seeds are seeds derived from a plant of the present invention.

The present invention also provides a container of over about 10 kg, more preferably about 25 kg, and even more preferably about 50 kg seeds where over about 10%, more preferably about 25%, more preferably about 50% and even more preferably about 75% or 90% of the seeds are seeds derived from a plant of the present invention.

Any of the plants or parts thereof of the present invention may be processed to produce a feed, meal, protein or oil preparation. A particularly preferred plant part for this purpose is a seed. In a preferred embodiment the feed, meal, protein or oil preparation is designed for ruminant animals. Methods to produce feed, meal, protein and oil preparations are known in the art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,957,748, 5,100,679, 5,219,596, 5,936,069, 6,005,076, 6,146,669, and 6,156,227. In a preferred embodiment, the protein preparation is a high protein preparation. Such a high protein preparation preferably has a protein content of greater than 5% w/v, more preferably 10% w/v, and even more preferably 15% w/v. In a preferred oil preparation, the oil preparation is a high oil preparation with an oil content derived from a plant or part thereof of the present invention of greater than 5% w/v, more preferably 10% w/v, and even more preferably 15% w/v. In a preferred embodiment the oil preparation is a liquid and of a volume greater than 1, 5, 10 or 50 liters. The present invention provides for oil produced from plants of the present invention or generated by a method of the present invention. Such an oil may exhibit enhanced oxidative stability. Also, such oil may be a minor or major component of any resultant product. Moreover, such oil may be blended with other oils. In a preferred embodiment, the oil produced from plants of the present invention or generated by a method of the present invention constitutes greater than 0.5%, 1%, 5%, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% or 90% by volume or weight of the oil component of any product. In another embodiment, the oil preparation may be blended and can constitute greater than 10%, 25%, 35%, 50% or 75% of the blend by volume. Oil produced from a plant of the present invention can be admixed with one or more organic solvents or petroleum distillates.

Plants of the present invention can be part of or generated from a breeding program. The choice of breeding method depends on the mode of plant reproduction, the heritability of the trait(s) being improved, and the type of cultivar used commercially (e.g., F₁ hybrid cultivar, pureline cultivar, etc). Selected, non-limiting approaches, for breeding the plants of the present invention are set forth below. A breeding program can be enhanced using marker assisted selection of the progeny of any cross. It is further understood that any commercial and non-commercial cultivars can be utilized in a breeding program. Factors such as, for example, emergence vigor, vegetative vigor, stress tolerance, disease resistance, branching, flowering, seed set, seed size, seed density, standability, and threshability etc. will generally dictate the choice.

For highly heritable traits, a choice of superior individual plants evaluated at a single location will be effective, whereas for traits with low heritability, selection should be based on mean values obtained from replicated evaluations of families of related plants. Popular selection methods commonly include pedigree selection, modified pedigree selection, mass selection, and recurrent selection. In a preferred embodiment a backcross or recurrent breeding program is undertaken.

The complexity of inheritance influences choice of the breeding method. Backcross breeding can be used to transfer one or a few favorable genes for a highly heritable trait into a desirable cultivar. This approach has been used extensively for breeding disease-resistant cultivars. Various recurrent selection techniques are used to improve quantitatively inherited traits controlled by numerous genes. The use of recurrent selection in self-pollinating crops depends on the ease of pollination, the frequency of successful hybrids from each pollination, and the number of hybrid offspring from each successful cross.

Breeding lines can be tested and compared to appropriate standards in environments representative of the commercial target area(s) for two or more generations. The best lines are candidates for new commercial cultivars; those still deficient in traits may be used as parents to produce new populations for further selection.

One method of identifying a superior plant is to observe its performance relative to other experimental plants and to a widely grown standard cultivar. If a single observation is inconclusive, replicated observations can provide a better estimate of its genetic worth. A breeder can select and cross two or more parental lines, followed by repeated selfing and selection, producing many new genetic combinations.

The development of new cultivars requires the development and selection of varieties, the crossing of these varieties and the selection of superior hybrid crosses. The hybrid seed can be produced by manual crosses between selected male-fertile parents or by using male sterility systems. Hybrids are selected for certain single gene traits such as pod color, flower color, seed yield, pubescence color, or herbicide resistance, which indicate that the seed is truly a hybrid. Additional data on parental lines, as well as the phenotype of the hybrid, influence the breeder's decision whether to continue with the specific hybrid cross.

Pedigree breeding and recurrent selection breeding methods can be used to develop cultivars from breeding populations. Breeding programs combine desirable traits from two or more cultivars or various broad-based sources into breeding pools from which cultivars are developed by selfing and selection of desired phenotypes. New cultivars can be evaluated to determine which have commercial potential.

Pedigree breeding is used commonly for the improvement of self-pollinating crops. Two parents who possess favorable, complementary traits are crossed to produce an F₁. A F₂ population is produced by selfing one or several F₁'s Selection of the best individuals from the best families is carried out. Replicated testing of families can begin in the F₄ generation to improve the effectiveness of selection for traits with low heritability. At an advanced stage of inbreeding (i.e., F₆ and F₇), the best lines or mixtures of phenotypically similar lines are tested for potential release as new cultivars.

Backcross breeding has been used to transfer genes for a simply inherited, highly heritable trait into a desirable homozygous cultivar or inbred line, which is the recurrent parent. The source of the trait to be transferred is called the donor parent. The resulting plant is expected to have the attributes of the recurrent parent (e.g. cultivar) and the desirable trait transferred from the donor parent. After the initial cross, individuals possessing the phenotype of the donor parent are selected and repeatedly crossed (backcrossed) to the recurrent parent. The resulting parent is expected to have the attributes of the recurrent parent (e.g., cultivar) and the desirable trait transferred from the donor parent.

The single-seed descent procedure in the strict sense refers to planting a segregating population, harvesting a sample of one seed per plant, and using the one-seed sample to plant the next generation. When the population has been advanced from the F₂ to the desired level of inbreeding, the plants from which lines are derived will each trace to different F₂ individuals. The number of plants in a population declines each generation due to failure of some seeds to germinate or some plants to produce at least one seed. As a result, not all of the F₂ plants originally sampled in the population will be represented by a progeny when generation advance is completed.

In a multiple-seed procedure, breeders commonly harvest one or more pods from each plant in a population and thresh them together to form a bulk. Part of the bulk is used to plant the next generation and part is put in reserve. The procedure has been referred to as modified single-seed descent or the pod-bulk technique.

The multiple-seed procedure has been used to save labor at harvest. It is considerably faster to thresh pods with a machine than to remove one seed from each by hand for the single-seed procedure. The multiple-seed procedure also makes it possible to plant the same number of seed of a population each generation of inbreeding.

Descriptions of other breeding methods that are commonly used for different traits and crops can be found in one of several reference books (e.g. Fehr, Principles of Cultivar Development Vol. 1, pp. 2-3 (1987))).

A transgenic plant of the present invention may also be reproduced using apomixis. Apomixis is a genetically controlled method of reproduction in plants where the embryo is formed without union of an egg and a sperm. There are three basic types of apomictic reproduction: 1) apospory where the embryo develops from a chromosomally unreduced egg in an embryo sac derived from the nucleus, 2) diplospory where the embryo develops from an unreduced egg in an embryo sac derived from the megaspore mother cell, and 3) adventitious embryony where the embryo develops directly from a somatic cell. In most forms of apomixis, pseudogamy or fertilization of the polar nuclei to produce endosperm is necessary for seed viability. In apospory, a nurse cultivar can be used as a pollen source for endosperm formation in seeds. The nurse cultivar does not affect the genetics of the aposporous apomictic cultivar since the unreduced egg of the cultivar develops parthenogenetically, but makes possible endosperm production. Apomixis is economically important, especially in transgenic plants, because it causes any genotype, no matter how heterozygous, to breed true. Thus, with apomictic reproduction, heterozygous transgenic plants can maintain their genetic fidelity throughout repeated life cycles. Methods for the production of apomictic plants are known in the art. See, U.S. Pat. No. 5,811,636.

Other Organisms

A nucleic acid of the present invention may be introduced into any cell or organism such as a mammalian cell, mammal, fish cell, fish, bird cell, bird, algae cell, algae, fungal cell, fingi, or bacterial cell. A protein of the present invention may be produced in an appropriate cell or organism. Preferred host and transformants include: fungal cells such as Aspergillus, yeasts, mammals, particularly bovine and porcine, insects, bacteria, and algae. Particularly preferred bacteria are agrobacterium tumefaciens and E. coli.

Methods to transform such cells or organisms are known in the art (EP 0 238 023; Yelton et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.), 81:1470-1474 (1984); Malardier et al., Gene, 78:147-156 (1989); Becker and Guarente, In: Abelson and Simon (eds.), Guide to Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology, Method Enzymol., Vol. 194, pp. 182-187, Academic Press, Inc., New York; Ito et al., J. Bacteriology, 153:163 (1983) Hinnen et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.), 75:1920 (1978); Bennett and LaSure (eds.), More Gene Manipulation in fungi, Academic Press, CA (1991)). Methods to produce proteins of the present invention are also known (Kudla et al., EMBO, 9:1355-1364 (1990); Jarai and Buxton, Current Genetics, 26:2238-2244 (1994); Verdier, Yeast, 6:271-297 (1990; MacKenzie et al., Journal of Gen. Microbiol., 139:2295-2307 (1993); Hartl et al., TIBS, 19:20-25 (1994); Bergenron et al., TIBS, 19:124-128 (1994); Demolder et al., J. Biotechnology, 32:179-189 (1994); Craig, Science, 260:1902-1903 (1993); Gething and Sambrook, Nature, 355:33-45 (1992); Puig and Gilbert, J. Biol. Chem., 269:7764-7771 (1994); Wang and Tsou, FASEB Journal, 7:1515-1517 (1993); Robinson et al., Bio/Technology, 1:381-384 (1994); Enderlin and Ogrydziak, Yeast, 10:67-79 (1994); Fuller et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.), 86:1434-1438 (1989); Julius et al., Cell, 37:1075-1089 (1984); Julius et al., Cell 32:839-852 (1983).

In a preferred embodiment, overexpression of a protein or fragment thereof of the present invention in a cell or organism provides in that cell or organism, relative to an untransformed cell or organism with a similar genetic background, an increased level of tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, overexpression of a protein or fragment thereof of the present invention in a cell or organism provides in that cell or organism, relative to an untransformed cell or organism with a similar genetic background, an increased level of α-tocopherols.

In a preferred embodiment, overexpression of a protein or fragment thereof of the present invention in a cell or organism provides in that cell or organism, relative to an untransformed cell or organism with a similar genetic background, an increased level of γ-tocopherols.

In another preferred embodiment, overexpression of a protein or fragment thereof of the present invention in a cell or organism provides in that cell or organism, relative to an untransformed cell or organism with a similar genetic background, an increased level of α-tocotrienols.

In another preferred embodiment, overexpression of a protein or fragment thereof of the present invention in a cell or organism provides in that cell or organism, relative to an untransformed cell or organism with a similar genetic background, an increased level of γ-tocotrienols.

Antibodies

One aspect of the invention concerns antibodies, single-chain antigen binding molecules, or other proteins that specifically bind to one or more of the protein or peptide molecules of the invention and their homologs, fusions or fragments. In a particularly preferred embodiment, the antibody specifically binds to a protein having the amino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 19-31, 33-38, 39-41, and 46-49 or a fragment thereof. In another embodiment, the antibody specifically binds to a fusion protein comprising an amino acid sequence selected from the amino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 19-33 and 33-38 or a fragment thereof. In another embodiment the antibody specifically binds to a fusion protein comprising an amino acid sequence selected from the amino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NOs: 46-49 or a fragment thereof. Anti-bodies of the invention may be used to quantitatively or qualitatively detect the protein or peptide molecules of the invention, or to detect post translational modifications of the proteins. As used herein, an antibody or peptide is said to “specifically bind” to a protein or peptide molecule of the invention if such binding is not competitively inhibited by the presence of non-related molecules.

Nucleic acid molecules that encode all or part of the protein of the invention can be expressed, via recombinant means, to yield protein or peptides that can in turn be used to elicit antibodies that are capable of binding the expressed protein or peptide. Such antibodies may be used in immunoassays for that protein. Such protein-encoding molecules, or their fragments may be a “fusion” molecule (i.e., a part of a larger nucleic acid molecule) such that, upon expression, a fusion protein is produced. It is understood that any of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be expressed, via recombinant means, to yield proteins or peptides encoded by these nucleic acid molecules.

The antibodies that specifically bind proteins and protein fragments of the invention may be polyclonal or monoclonal and may comprise intact immunoglobulins, or antigen binding portions of immunoglobulins fragments (such as (F(ab′), F(ab′)₂), or single-chain immunoglobulins producible, for example, via recombinant means. It is understood that practitioners are familiar with the standard resource materials that describe specific conditions and procedures for the construction, manipulation and isolation of antibodies (see, for example, Harlow and Lane, In: Antibodies: A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1988)).

As discussed below, such antibody molecules or their fragments may be used for diagnostic purposes. Where the antibodies are intended for diagnostic purposes, it may be desirable to derivatize them, for example with a ligand group (such as biotin) or a detectable marker group (such as a fluorescent group, a radioisotope or an enzyme).

The ability to produce antibodies that bind the protein or peptide molecules of the invention permits the identification of mimetic compounds derived from those molecules. These mimetic compounds may contain a fragment of the protein or peptide or merely a structurally similar region and nonetheless exhibits an ability to specifically bind to antibodies directed against that compound.

Exemplary Uses

Nucleic acid molecules and fragments thereof of the invention may be employed to obtain other nucleic acid molecules from the same species (nucleic acid molecules from corn may be utilized to obtain other nucleic acid molecules from corn). Such nucleic acid molecules include the nucleic acid molecules that encode the complete coding sequence of a protein and promoters and flanking sequences of such molecules. In addition, such nucleic acid molecules include nucleic acid molecules that encode for other isozymes or gene family members. Such molecules can be readily obtained by using the above-described nucleic acid molecules or fragments thereof to screen cDNA or genomic libraries. Methods for forming such libraries are well known in the art.

Nucleic acid molecules and fragments thereof of the invention may also be employed to obtain nucleic acid homologs. Such homologs include the nucleic acid molecules of plants and other organisms, including bacteria and fungi, including the nucleic acid molecules that encode, in whole or in part, protein homologues of other plant species or other organisms, sequences of genetic elements, such as promoters and transcriptional regulatory elements. Such molecules can be readily obtained by using the above-described nucleic acid molecules or fragments thereof to screen cDNA or genomic libraries obtained from such plant species. Methods for forming such libraries are well known in the art. Such homolog molecules may differ in their nucleotide sequences from those found in one or more of SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85 and complements thereof because complete complementarity is not needed for stable hybridization. The nucleic acid molecules of the invention therefore also include molecules that, although capable of specifically hybridizing with the nucleic acid molecules may lack “complete complementarity.”

Any of a variety of methods may be used to obtain one or more of the above-described nucleic acid molecules (Zamechik et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 83:4143-4146 (1986); Goodchild et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 85:5507-5511 (1988); Wickstrom et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 85:1028-1032 (1988); Holt et al., Molec. Cell. Biol. 8:963-973 (1988); Gerwirtz et al., Science 242:1303-1306 (1988); Anfossi et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 86:3379-3383 (1989); Becker et al., EMBO J. 8:3685-3691 (1989)). Automated nucleic acid synthesizers may be employed for this purpose. In lieu of such synthesis, the disclosed nucleic acid molecules may be used to define a pair of primers that can be used with the polymerase chain reaction (Mullis et al., Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 51:263-273 (1986); Erlich et al., European Patent 50,424; European Patent 84,796; European Patent 258,017; European Patent 237,362; Mullis, European Patent 201,184; Mullis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,202; Erlich, U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,788; and Saiki et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,194) to amplify and obtain any desired nucleic acid molecule or fragment.

Promoter sequences and other genetic elements, including but not limited to transcriptional regulatory flanking sequences, associated with one or more of the disclosed nucleic acid sequences can also be obtained using the disclosed nucleic acid sequence provided herein. In one embodiment, such sequences are obtained by incubating nucleic acid molecules of the present invention with members of genomic libraries and recovering clones that hybridize to such nucleic acid molecules thereof. In a second embodiment, methods of “chromosome walking,” or inverse PCR may be used to obtain such sequences (Frohman et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 85:8998-9002 (1988); Ohara et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 86:5673-5677 (1989); Pang et al., Biotechniques 22:1046-1048 (1977); Huang et al., Methods Mol. Biol. 69:89-96 (1997); Huang et al., Method Mol. Biol. 67:287-294 (1997); Benkel et al., Genet. Anal. 13:123-127 (1996); Hartl et al., Methods Mol. Biol. 58:293-301 (1996)). The term “chromosome walking” means a process of extending a genetic map by successive hybridization steps.

The nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be used to isolate promoters of cell enhanced, cell specific, tissue enhanced, tissue specific, developmentally or environmentally regulated expression profiles. Isolation and functional analysis of the 5′ flanking promoter sequences of these genes from genomic libraries, for example, using genomic screening methods and PCR techniques would result in the isolation of useful promoters and transcriptional regulatory elements. These methods are known to those of skill in the art and have been described (See, for example, Birren et al., Genome Analysis: Analyzing DNA, 1, (1997), Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.). Promoters obtained utilizing the nucleic acid molecules of the invention could also be modified to affect their control characteristics. Examples of such modifications would include but are not limited to enhancer sequences. Such genetic elements could be used to enhance gene expression of new and existing traits for crop improvement.

Another subset of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention includes nucleic acid molecules that are markers. The markers can be used in a number of conventional ways in the field of molecular genetics. Such markers include nucleic acid molecules SEQ ID NOs: 2-17, 50, and 85, complements thereof, and fragments of either that can act as markers and other nucleic acid molecules of the present invention that can act as markers.

Genetic markers of the invention include “dominant” or “codominant” markers. “Codominant markers” reveal the presence of two or more alleles (two per diploid individual) at a locus. “Dominant markers” reveal the presence of only a single allele per locus. The presence of the dominant marker phenotype (e.g., a band of DNA) is an indication that one allele is in either the homozygous or heterozygous condition. The absence of the dominant marker phenotype (e.g., absence of a DNA band) is merely evidence that “some other” undefined allele is present. In the case of populations where individuals are predominantly homozygous and loci are predominately dimorphic, dominant and codominant markers can be equally valuable. As populations become more heterozygous and multi-allelic, codominant markers often become more informative of the genotype than dominant markers. Marker molecules can be, for example, capable of detecting polymorphisms such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).

The genomes of animals and plants naturally undergo spontaneous mutation in the course of their continuing evolution (Gusella, Ann. Rev. Biochem. 55:831-854 (1986)). A “polymorphism” is a variation or difference in the sequence of the gene or its flanking regions that arises in some of the members of a species. The variant sequence and the “original” sequence co-exist in the species' population. In some instances, such co-existence is in stable or quasi-stable equilibrium.

A polymorphism is thus said to be “allelic,” in that, due to the existence of the polymorphism, some members of a population may have the original sequence (i.e., the original “allele”) whereas other members may have the variant sequence (i.e., the variant “allele”). In the simplest case, only one variant sequence may exist and the polymorphism is thus said to be di-allelic. In other cases, the species' population may contain multiple alleles and the polymorphism is termed tri-allelic, etc. A single gene may have multiple different unrelated polymorphisms. For example, it may have a di-allelic polymorphism at one site and a multi-allelic polymorphism at another site.

The variation that defines the polymorphism may range from a single nucleotide variation to the insertion or deletion of extended regions within a gene. In some cases, the DNA sequence variations are in regions of the genome that are characterized by short tandem repeats (STRs) that include tandem di- or tri-nucleotide repeated motifs of nucleotides. Polymorphisms characterized by such tandem repeats are referred to as “variable number tandem repeat” (“VNTR”) polymorphisms. VNTRs have been used in identity analysis (Weber, U.S. Pat. No. 5,075,217; Armour et al., FEBS Lett. 307:113-115 (1992); Jones et al., Eur. J. Haematol. 39:144-147 (1987); Horn et al., PCT Patent Application WO 91/14003; Jeffreys, European Patent Application 370,719; Jeffreys, U.S. Pat. No. 5,175,082; Jeffreys et al., Amer. J. Hum. Genet. 39:11-24 (1986); Jeffreys et al., Nature 316:76-79 (1985); Gray et al., Proc. R. Acad. Soc. Lond. 243:241-253 (1991); Moore et al., Genomics 10:654-660 (1991); Jeffreys et al., Anim. Genet. 18:1-15 (1987); Hillel et al., Anim. Genet. 20:145-155 (1989); Hillel et al., Genet. 124:783-789 (1990)).

The detection of polymorphic sites in a sample of DNA may be facilitated through the use of nucleic acid amplification methods. Such methods specifically increase the concentration of polynucleotides that span the polymorphic site, or include that site and sequences located either distal or proximal to it. Such amplified molecules can be readily detected by gel electrophoresis or other means.

In an alternative embodiment, such polymorphisms can be detected through the use of a marker nucleic acid molecule that is physically linked to such polymorphism(s). For this purpose, marker nucleic acid molecules comprising a nucleotide sequence of a polynucleotide located within 1 mb of the polymorphism(s) and more preferably within 100 kb of the polymorphism(s) and most preferably within 10 kb of the polymorphism(s) can be employed.

The identification of a polymorphism can be determined in a variety of ways. By correlating the presence or absence of it in a plant with the presence or absence of a phenotype, it is possible to predict the phenotype of that plant. If a polymorphism creates or destroys a restriction endonuclease cleavage site, or if it results in the loss or insertion of DNA (e.g., a VNTR polymorphism), it will alter the size or profile of the DNA fragments that are generated by digestion with that restriction endonuclease. As such, organisms that possess a variant sequence can be distinguished from those having the original sequence by restriction fragment analysis. Polymorphisms that can be identified in this manner are termed “restriction fragment length polymorphisms” (“RFLPs”) (Glassberg, UK Patent Application 2135774; Skolnick et al., Cytogen. Cell Genet. 32:58-67 (1982); Botstein et al., Ann. J Hum. Genet. 32:314-331 (1980); Fischer et al., (PCT Application WO 90/13668; Uhlen, PCT Application WO 90/11369).

Polymorphisms can also be identified by Single Strand Conformation Polymorphism (SSCP) analysis (Elles, Methods in Molecular Medicine: Molecular Diagnosis of Genetic Diseases, Humana Press (1996)); Orita et al., Genomics 5:874-879 (1989)). A number of protocols have been described for SSCP including, but not limited to, Lee et al., Anal. Biochem. 205:289-293 (1992); Suzuki et al., Anal. Biochem. 192:82-84 (1991); Lo et al., Nucleic Acids Research 20:1005-1009 (1992); Sarkar et al., Genomics 13:441-443 (1992). It is understood that one or more of the nucleic acids of the invention, may be utilized as markers or probes to detect polymorphisms by SSCP analysis.

Polymorphisms may also be found using a DNA fingerprinting technique called amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), which is based on the selective PCR amplification of restriction fragments from a total digest of genomic DNA to profile that DNA (Vos et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 23:4407-4414 (1995)). This method allows for the specific co-amplification of high numbers of restriction fragments, which can be visualized by PCR without knowledge of the nucleic acid sequence. It is understood that one or more of the nucleic acids of the invention may be utilized as markers or probes to detect polymorphisms by AFLP analysis or for fingerprinting RNA.

Polymorphisms may also be found using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) (Williams et al., Nucl. Acids Res. 18:6531-6535 (1990)) and cleavable amplified polymorphic sequences (CAPS) (Lyamichev et al., Science 260:778-783 (1993)). It is understood that one or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention, may be utilized as markers or probes to detect polymorphisms by RAPD or CAPS analysis.

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) generally occur at greater frequency than other polymorphic markers and are spaced with a greater uniformity throughout a genome than other reported forms of polymorphism. The greater frequency and uniformity of SNPs means that there is greater probability that such a polymorphism will be found near or in a genetic locus of interest than would be the case for other polymorphisms. SNPs are located in protein-coding regions and noncoding regions of a genome. Some of these SNPs may result in defective or variant protein expression (e.g., as a result of mutations or defective splicing). Analysis (genotyping) of characterized SNPs can require only a plus/minus assay rather than a lengthy measurement, permitting easier automation.

SNPs can be characterized using any of a variety of methods. Such methods include the direct or indirect sequencing of the site, the use of restriction enzymes (Botstein et al., Am. J. Hum. Genet. 32:314-331 (1980); Konieczny and Ausubel, Plant J. 4:403-410 (1993)), enzymatic and chemical mismatch assays (Myers et al., Nature 313:495-498 (1985)), allele-specific PCR (Newton et al., Nucl. Acids Res. 17:2503-2516 (1989); Wu et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86:2757-2760 (1989)), ligase chain reaction (Barany, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88:189-193 (1991)), single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis (Labrune et al., Am. J. Hum. Genet. 48: 1115-1120 (1991)), single base primer extension (Kuppuswamy et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88:1143-1147 (1991)), Goelet U.S. Pat. No. 6,004,744; Goelet U.S. Pat. No. 5,888,819), solid-phase ELISA-based oligonucleotide ligation assays (Nikiforov et al., Nucl. Acids Res. 22:4167-4175 (1994), dideoxy fingerprinting (Sarkar et al., Genomics 13:441-443 (1992)), oligonucleotide fluorescence-quenching assays (Livak et al., PCR Methods Appl. 4:357-362 (1995a)), 5′-nuclease allele-specific hybridization TaqMan™ assay (Livak et al., Nature Genet. 9:341-342 (1995)), template-directed dye-terminator incorporation (TDI) assay (Chen and Kwok, Nucl. Acids Res. 25:347-353 (1997)), allele-specific molecular beacon assay (Tyagi et al., Nature Biotech. 16: 49-53 (1998)), PinPoint assay (Haff and Smirnov, Genome Res. 7: 378-388 (1997)), dCAPS analysis (Neff et al., Plant J. 14:387-392 (1998)), pyrosequencing (Ronaghi et al., Analytical Biochemistry 267:65-71 (1999); Ronaghi et al PCT application WO 98/13523; Nyren et al PCT application WO 98/28440; www.pyrosequencing.com), using mass spectrometry, e.g. the Masscode™ system (Howbert et al PCT application, WO 99/05319; Howbert et al PCT application WO 97/27331; www.rapigene.com; Becker et al PCT application WO 98/26095; Becker et al PCT application; WO 98/12355; Becker et al PCT application WO 97/33000; Monforte et al U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,363), invasive cleavage of oligonucleotide probes (Lyamichev et al Nature Biotechnology 17:292-296; www.twt.com), and using high density oligonucleotide arrays (Hacia et al Nature Genetics 22:164-167; www.affymetrix.com).

Polymorphisms may also be detected using allele-specific oligonucleotides (ASO), which, can be for example, used in combination with hybridization based technology including southern, northern, and dot blot hybridizations, reverse dot blot hybridizations and hybridizations performed on microarray and related technology.

The stringency of hybridization for polymorphism detection is highly dependent upon a variety of factors, including length of the allele-specific oligonucleotide, sequence composition, degree of complementarity (i.e. presence or absence of base mismatches), concentration of salts and other factors such as formamide, and temperature. These factors are important both during the hybridization itself and during subsequent washes performed to remove target polynucleotide that is not specifically hybridized. In practice, the conditions of the final, most stringent wash are most critical. In addition, the amount of target polynucleotide that is able to hybridize to the allele-specific oligonucleotide is also governed by such factors as the concentration of both the ASO and the target polynucleotide, the presence and concentration of factors that act to “tie up” water molecules, so as to effectively concentrate the reagents (e.g., PEG, dextran, dextran sulfate, etc.), whether the nucleic acids are immobilized or in solution, and the duration of hybridization and washing steps.

Hybridizations are preferably performed below the melting temperature (T_(m)) of the ASO. The closer the hybridization and/or washing step is to the T_(m), the higher the stringency. T_(m) for an oligonucleotide may be approximated, for example, according to the following formula: T_(m)=81.5+16.6×(log10[Na+])+0.41×(% G+C)−675/n; where [Na+] is the molar salt concentration of Na+ or any other suitable cation and n=number of bases in the oligonucleotide. Other formulas for approximating T_(m) are available and are known to those of ordinary skill in the art.

Stringency is preferably adjusted so as to allow a given ASO to differentially hybridize to a target polynucleotide of the correct allele and a target polynucleotide of the incorrect allele. Preferably, there will be at least a two-fold differential between the signal produced by the ASO hybridizing to a target polynucleotide of the correct allele and the level of the signal produced by the ASO cross-hybridizing to a target polynucleotide of the incorrect allele (e.g., an ASO specific for a mutant allele cross-hybridizing to a wild-type allele). In more preferred embodiments of the present invention, there is at least a five-fold signal differential. In highly preferred embodiments of the present invention, there is at least an order of magnitude signal differential between the ASO hybridizing to a target polynucleotide of the correct allele and the level of the signal produced by the ASO cross-hybridizing to a target polynucleotide of the incorrect allele.

While certain methods for detecting polymorphisms are described herein, other detection methodologies may be utilized. For example, additional methodologies are known and set forth, in Birren et al., Genome Analysis, 4:135-186, A Laboratory Manual. Mapping Genomes, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1999); Maliga et al., Methods in Plant Molecular Biology. A Laboratory Course Manual, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1995); Paterson, Biotechnology Intelligence Unit: Genome Mapping in Plants, R. G. Landes Co., Georgetown, Tex., and Academic Press, San Diego, Calif. (1996); The Corn Handbook, Freeling and Walbot, eds., Springer-Verlag, New York, N.Y. (1994); Methods in Molecular Medicine: Molecular Diagnosis of Genetic Diseases, Elles, ed., Humana Press, Totowa, N.J. (1996); Clark, ed., Plant Molecular Biology: A Laboratory Manual, Clark, ed., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany (1997).

Factors for marker-assisted selection in a plant breeding program are: (1) the marker(s) should co-segregate or be closely linked with the desired trait; (2) an efficient means of screening large populations for the molecular marker(s) should be available; and (3) the screening technique should have high reproducibility across laboratories and preferably be economical to use and be user-friendly.

The genetic linkage of marker molecules can be established by a gene mapping model such as, without limitation, the flanking marker model reported by Lander and Botstein, Genetics 121:185-199 (1989) and the interval mapping, based on maximum likelihood methods described by Lander and Botstein, Genetics 121:185-199 (1989) and implemented in the software package MAPMAKER/QTL (Lincoln and Lander, Mapping Genes Controlling Quantitative Traits Using MAPMAKER/QTL, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts, (1990). Additional software includes Qgene, Version 2.23 (1996), Department of Plant Breeding and Biometry, 266 Emerson Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.). Use of Qgene software is a particularly preferred approach.

A maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) for the presence of a marker is calculated, together with an MLE assuming no QTL effect, to avoid false positives. A log₁₀ of an odds ratio (LOD) is then calculated as: LOD=log₁₀ (MLE for the presence of a QTL/MLE given no linked QTL).

The LOD score essentially indicates how much more likely the data are to have arisen assuming the presence of a QTL than in its absence. The LOD threshold value for avoiding a false positive with a given confidence, say 95%, depends on the number of markers and the length of the genome. Graphs indicating LOD thresholds are set forth in Lander and Botstein, Genetics 121:185-199 (1989) and further described by Arús and Moreno-González, Plant Breeding, Hayward et al., (eds.) Chapman & Hall, London, pp. 314-331 (1993).

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention the nucleic acid marker exhibits a LOD score of greater than 2.0, more preferably 2.5, even more preferably greater than 3.0 or 4.0 with the trait or phenotype of interest. In a preferred embodiment, the trait of interest is altered tocopherol levels or compositions or altered tocotrienol levels or compositions.

Additional models can be used. Many modifications and alternative approaches to interval mapping have been reported, including the use non-parametric methods (Kruglyak and Lander, Genetics 139:1421-1428 (1995)). Multiple regression methods or models can be also be used, in which the trait is regressed on a large number of markers (Jansen, Biometrics in Plant Breeding, van Oijen and Jansen (eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth Meeting of the Eucarpia Section Biometrics in Plant Breeding, The Netherlands, pp. 116-124 (1994); Weber and Wricke, Advances in Plant Breeding, Blackwell, Berlin, 16 (1994)). Procedures combining interval mapping with regression analysis, whereby the phenotype is regressed onto a single putative QTL at a given marker interval and at the same time onto a number of markers that serve as ‘cofactors,’ have been reported by Jansen and Stam, Genetics 136:1447-1455 (1994), and Zeng, Genetics 136:1457-1468 (1994). Generally, the use of cofactors reduces the bias and sampling error of the estimated QTL positions (Utz and Melchinger, Biometrics in Plant Breeding, van Oijen and Jansen (eds.) Proceedings of the Ninth Meeting of the Eucarpia Section Biometrics in Plant Breeding, The Netherlands, pp. 195-204 (1994), thereby improving the precision and efficiency of QTL mapping (Zeng, Genetics 136:1457-1468 (1994)). These models can be extended to multi-environment experiments to analyze genotype-environment interactions (Jansen et al., Theo. Appl. Genet. 91:33-37 (1995)).

It is understood that one or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be used as molecular markers. It is also understood that one or more of the protein molecules of the invention may be used as molecular markers.

In a preferred embodiment, the polymorphism is present and screened for in a mapping population, e.g. a collection of plants capable of being used with markers such as polymorphic markers to map genetic position of traits. The choice of appropriate mapping population often depends on the type of marker systems employed (Tanksley et al., J. P. Gustafson and R. Appels (eds.). Plenum Press, New York, pp. 157-173 (1988)). Consideration must be given to the source of parents (adapted vs. exotic) used in the mapping population. Chromosome pairing and recombination rates can be severely disturbed (suppressed) in wide crosses (adapted×exotic) and generally yield greatly reduced linkage distances. Wide crosses will usually provide segregating populations with a relatively large number of polymorphisms when compared to progeny in a narrow cross (adapted×adapted).

An F₂ population is the first generation of selfing (self-pollinating) after the hybrid seed is produced. Usually a single F₁ plant is selfed to generate a population segregating for all the genes in Mendelian (1:2:1) pattern. Maximum genetic information is obtained from a completely classified F₂ population using a codominant marker system (Mather, Measurement of Linkage in Heredity: Methuen and Co., (1938)). In the case of dominant markers, progeny tests (e.g., F₃, BCF₂) are required to identify the heterozygotes, in order to classify the population. However, this procedure is often prohibitive because of the cost and time involved in progeny testing. Progeny testing of F₂ individuals is often used in map construction where phenotypes do not consistently reflect geno-type (e.g. disease resistance) or where trait expression is controlled by a QTL. Segregation data from progeny test populations e.g. F₃ or BCF₂) can be used in map construction. Marker-assisted selection can then be applied to cross progeny based on marker-trait map associations (F₂, F₃), where linkage groups have not been completely disassociated by recombination events (i.e., maximum disequilibrium).

Recombinant inbred lines (RIL) (genetically related lines; usually >F₅, developed from continuously selfing F₂ lines towards homozygosity) can be used as a mapping population. Information obtained from dominant markers can be maximized by using RIL because all loci are homozygous or nearly so. Under conditions of tight linkage (i.e., about <10% recombination), dominant and co-dominant markers evaluated in RIL populations provide more information per individual than either marker type in backcross populations (Reiter. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 89:1477-1481 (1992)). However, as the distance between markers becomes larger (i.e., loci become more independent), the information in RIL populations decreases dramatically when compared to codominant markers.

Backcross populations (e.g., generated from a cross between a successful variety (recurrent parent) and another variety (donor parent) carrying a trait not present in the former) can be utilized as a mapping population. A series of backcrosses to the recurrent parent can be made to recover most of its desirable traits. Thus a population is created consisting of individuals nearly like the recurrent parent but each individual carries varying amounts or mosaic of genomic regions from the donor parent. Backcross populations can be useful for mapping dominant markers if all loci in the recurrent parent are homozygous and the donor and recurrent parent have contrasting polymorphic marker alleles (Reiter et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 89:1477-1481 (1992)). Information obtained from backcross populations using either codominant or dominant markers is less than that obtained from F₂ populations because one, rather than two, recombinant gamete is sampled per plant. Backcross populations, however, are more informative (at low marker saturation) when compared to RILs as the distance between linked loci increases in RIL populations (i.e. about 0.15% recombination). Increased recombination can be beneficial for resolution of tight linkages, but may be undesirable in the construction of maps with low marker saturation.

Near-isogenic lines (NIL) (created by many backcrosses to produce a collection of individuals that is nearly identical in genetic composition except for the trait or genomic region under interrogation) can be used as a mapping population. In mapping with NILs, only a portion of the polymorphic loci is expected to map to a selected region.

Bulk segregant analysis (BSA) is a method developed for the rapid identification of linkage between markers and traits of interest (Michelmore et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 88:9828-9832 (1991)). In BSA, two bulked DNA samples are drawn from a segregating population originating from a single cross. These bulks contain individuals that are identical for a particular trait (resistant or susceptible to particular disease) or genomic region but arbitrary at unlinked regions (i.e. heterozygous). Regions unlinked to the target region will not differ between the bulked samples of many individuals in BSA.

In an aspect of the present invention, one or more of the nucleic molecules of the present invention are used to determine the level (i.e., the concentration of mRNA in a sample, etc.) in a plant (preferably canola, corn, Brassica campestris, oilseed rape, rapeseed, soybean, crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame, cottonseed, linseed, safflower, oil palm, flax or sunflower) or pattern (i.e., the kinetics of expression, rate of decomposition, stability profile, etc.) of the expression of a protein encoded in part or whole by one or more of the nucleic acid molecule of the present invention (collectively, the “Expression Response” of a cell or tissue).

As used herein, the Expression Response manifested by a cell or tissue is said to be “altered” if it differs from the Expression Response of cells or tissues of plants not exhibiting the phenotype. To determine whether an Expression Response is altered, the Expression Response manifested by the cell or tissue of the plant exhibiting the pheno-type is compared with that of a similar cell or tissue sample of a plant not exhibiting the phenotype. As will be appreciated, it is not necessary to re-determine the Expression Response of the cell or tissue sample of plants not exhibiting the phenotype each time such a comparison is made; rather, the Expression Response of a particular plant may be compared with previously obtained values of normal plants. As used herein, the phenotype of the organism is any of one or more characteristics of an organism (e.g. disease resistance, pest tolerance, environmental tolerance such as tolerance to abiotic stress, male sterility, quality improvement or yield etc.). A change in genotype or phenotype may be transient or permanent. Also as used herein, a tissue sample is any sample that comprises more than one cell. In a preferred aspect, a tissue sample comprises cells that share a common characteristic (e.g. Derived from root, seed, flower, leaf, stem or pollen etc.).

In one aspect of the present invention, an evaluation can be conducted to determine whether a particular mRNA molecule is present. One or more of the nucleic acid molecules of the present invention are utilized to detect the presence or quantity of the mRNA species. Such molecules are then incubated with cell or tissue extracts of a plant under conditions sufficient to permit nucleic acid hybridization. The detection of double-stranded probe-mRNA hybrid molecules is indicative of the presence of the mRNA; the amount of such hybrid formed is proportional to the amount of mRNA. Thus, such probes may be used to ascertain the level and extent of the mRNA production in a plant's cells or tissues. Such nucleic acid hybridization may be conducted under quantitative conditions (thereby providing a numerical value of the amount of the mRNA present). Alternatively, the assay may be conducted as a qualitative assay that indicates either that the mRNA is present, or that its level exceeds a user set, predefined value.

A number of methods can be used to compare the expression response between two or more samples of cells or tissue. These methods include hybridization assays, such as northerns, RNAse protection assays, and in situ hybridization. Alternatively, the methods include PCR-type assays. In a preferred method, the expression response is compared by hybridizing nucleic acids from the two or more samples to an array of nucleic acids. The array contains a plurality of suspected sequences known or suspected of being present in the cells or tissue of the samples.

An advantage of in situ hybridization over more conventional techniques for the detection of nucleic acids is that it allows an investigator to determine the precise spatial population (Angerer et al., Dev. Biol. 101:477-484 (1984); Angerer et al., Dev. Biol. 112:157-166 (1985); Dixon et al., EMBO J. 10:1317-1324 (1991)). In situ hybridization may be used to measure the steady-state level of RNA accumulation (Hardin et al., J. Mol. Biol. 202:417-431 (1989)). A number of protocols have been devised for in situ hybridization, each with tissue preparation, hybridization and washing conditions (Meyerowitz, Plant Mol. Biol. Rep. 5:242-250 (1987); Cox and Goldberg, In: Plant Molecular Biology: A Practical Approach, Shaw (ed.), pp. 1-35, IRL Press, Oxford (1988); Raikhel et al., In situ RNA hybridization in plant tissues, In: Plant Molecular Biology Manual, vol. B9:1-32, Kluwer Academic Publisher, Dordrecht, Belgium (1989)).

In situ hybridization also allows for the localization of proteins within a tissue or cell (Wilkinson, In Situ Hybridization, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1992); Langdale, In Situ Hybridization In: The Corn Handbook, Freeling and Walbot (eds.), pp. 165-179, Springer-Verlag, New York (1994)). It is understood that one or more of the molecules of the invention, preferably one or more of the nucleic acid molecules or fragments thereof of the invention or one or more of the antibodies of the invention may be utilized to detect the level or pattern of a protein or mRNA thereof by in situ hybridization.

Fluorescent in situ hybridization allows the localization of a particular DNA sequence along a chromosome, which is useful, among other uses, for gene mapping, following chromosomes in hybrid lines, or detecting chromosomes with translocations, transversions or deletions. In situ hybridization has been used to identify chromosomes in several plant species (Griffor et al., Plant Mol. Biol. 17:101-109 (1991); Gustafson et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (U.S.A.) 87:1899-1902 (1990); Mukai and Gill, Genome 34:448-452 (1991); Schwarzacher and Heslop-Harrison, Genome 34:317-323 (1991); Wang et al., Jpn. J. Genet. 66:313-316 (1991); Parra and Windle, Nature Genetics 5:17-21 (1993)). It is understood that the nucleic acid molecules of the invention may be used as probes or markers to localize sequences along a chromosome.

Another method to localize the expression of a molecule is tissue printing. Tissue printing provides a way to screen, at the same time on the same membrane many tissue sections from different plants or different developmental stages (Yomo and Taylor, Planta 112:35-43 (1973); Harris and Chrispeels, Plant Physiol. 56:292-299 (1975); Cassab and Varner, J. Cell. Biol. 105:2581-2588 (1987); Spruce et al., Phytochemistry 26:2901-2903 (1987); Barres et al., Neuron 5:527-544 (1990); Reid and Pont-Lezica, Tissue Printing: Tools for the Study of Anatomy, Histochemistry and Gene Expression, Academic Press, New York, N.Y. (1992); Reid et al., Plant Physiol. 93:160-165 (1990); Ye et al., Plant J. 1:175-183 (1991)).

One skilled in the art can refer to general reference texts for detailed descriptions of known techniques discussed herein or equivalent techniques. These texts include Current Protocols in Molecular Biology Ausubel, et al., eds., John Wiley & Sons, N.Y. (1989), and supplements through September (1998), Molecular Cloning, A Laboratory Manual, Sambrook et al., 2^(nd) Ed., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1989), Genome Analysis: A Laboratory Manual 1: Analyzing DNA, Birren et al., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1997); Genome Analysis: A Laboratory Manual 2: Detecting Genes, Birren et al., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1998); Genome Analysis: A Laboratory Manual 3: Cloning Systems, Birren et al., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1999); Genome Analysis: A Laboratory Manual 4: Mapping Genomes, Birren et al., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1999); Plant Molecular Biology: A Laboratory Manual, Clark, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, (1997), Methods in Plant Molecular Biology, Maliga et al., Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (1995). These texts can, of course, also be referred to in making or using an aspect of the invention. It is understood that any of the agents of the invention can be substantially purified and/or be biologically active and/or recombinant.

Having now generally described the invention, the same will be more readily understood through reference to the following examples that are provided by way of illustration, and are not intended to be limiting of the present invention, unless specified.

EXAMPLE 1

A DNA sequence of gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase from Arabidopsis thaliana (NCBI General Identifier Number 4106537) is used to search databases for plant sequences with homology to GMT using BLASTN (Altschul et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 25:3389-3402 (1997); see also www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST/). Results are shown in table 1, below.

TABLE 1 BLAST RESULTS FOR PLANT SEQUENCES ENCODING POLYPEPTIDES HOMOLOGOUS TO ARABIDOPSIS GAMMA-TOCOPHEROL METHYLTRANSFERASE Sequences producing significant alignments: Score (bits) E Value Arabidopsis thaliana (Columbia ecotype) 707 0.0 Brassica napus S8 clone 611 e−179 Brassica napus P4 clone 605 e−177 cotton GMT 459 e−133 soybeanGMT2 454 e−132 soybeanGMT1 453 e−132 soybeanGMT3 453 e−131 Marigold GMT (Tagetes erecta) 446 e−129 tomato GMT 441 e−128 cuphea GMT 440 e−127 Rice GMT 430 e−124 corn GMT 428 e−123 sorghum bicolor GMT 328 9e−94 

The protein identity of these sequences compared to one another is listed in table 2.

TABLE 2 PROTEIN IDENTITY TABLE OF PLANT SEQUENCES ENCODING POLYPEPTIDES HOMOLOGOUS TO GAMMA-TOCOPHEROL METHYLTRANSFERASE Arabidopsis GMT Arabidopsis Brassica Brassica Cuphea Gossypium Zea Oryza Sorghum Tagetes (gi 4106537) Columbia S8 P4 pulcherrima hirsutum mays sativa bicolor erecta Arabidopsis GMT 100%  (gi 4106537) 348/348 Arabidopsis 99% 100%  Columbia GMT 347/348 348/348 Brassica S8 GMT 88% 88% 100%  309/350 308/350 347/347 Brassica P4 GMT 87% 86% 96% 100%  304/349 303/349 335/348 347/347 Cuphea pulcherrima 72% 71% 68% 68% 100%  GMT 213/295 212/295 216/314 213/313 376/376 Gossypium hirsutum 67% 67% 71% 67% 71% 100%  GMT 218/323 219/323 225/316 231/342 212/296 345/345 Zea mays GMT 63% 62% 65% 63% 71% 67% 100%  210/333 209/333 217/332 211/330 208/290 223/331 352/352 Oryza sativa GMT 63% 63% 67% 62% 70% 65% 76% 100%  212/332 212/332 214/319 220/352 204/291 226/347 279/364 364/364 Sorghum bicolor GMT 72% 72% 75% 73% 74% 78% 96% 91% 100%  154/212 153/212 159/212 156/212 157/212 166/212 208/215 193/212 215/215 Tagetes erecta GMT 69% 70% 69% 68% 72% 70% 70% 71% 77% 100%  218/312 219/312 214/309 211/310 210/291 209/297 216/305 219/308 165/212 310/310 Lycopersicon 68% esculentum GMT 212/311 Glycine max GMT1 73% 218/297 Glycine max GMT2 70% 225/318 Glycine max GMT3 75% 220/290

A protein sequence of the Synechocystis GMT (NCBI General Identifier Number 1001725) is used in a BlastP search against predicted ORFs from other cyanobacteria at the ERGO website (www.integratedgenomics.com/IGwit/).

Two sequences with substantial homology to the Synechocystis GMT are found from two cyanobacteria species. These sequences are annotated as having a function of delta(24)-sterol C-methyltransferase (EC 2.1.1.41).

E-Value Score Nostoc punctiforme 1e−105 375 Anabaena sp. 1e−101 361

TABLE 3 CYANOBACTERIA GMT CLUSTAL W (1.8) MULTIPLE SEQUENCE ALIGNMENT Nostoc punctiforme     ------------------------- MSATLYQQIQQFYDASSGLWEQIWGEHMHHG Anabaena sp.       ----------------------------- MSATLYQQIQQFYDASSGLWEEIWGEHMHHG Synechocystis MVYHVRPKHALFLAFYCYFSLLTMASATIASADLYEKIKNFYDDSSGLWEDVWGEHMHHG                                                  ** **::*::*** ******::******** Nostoc punctiforme  YYGADGTQKKDRRQAQIDLIEELLNWAGVQAAED--- LDVGCGIGGSSLYLAQKFNAKA Anabaena sp.     YYGADGTEQKNRRQAQIDLIEELLTWAGVQTAEN--- LDVGCGIGGSSLYLAGKLNAKA Synechocystis YGPHGTYRIDRRQAQIDLIKELLAWAVPQNSAKPRKILDLGCGIGGSSLYLAQQHQAEV                     ***..** : :*********:*** **  * : .   ***:************ : *:. Nostoc punctiforme GITLSPVQAARATERALEANLSLRTQFQVANAQAMPFADDSFDLVWSLESGEHMPDKTK Anabaena sp. GITLSPVQAARATERAKEAGLSGRSQFLVANAQAMPFDDNSFDLVWSLESGEHMPDKTK Synechocystis MGASLSPVQVERAGERARALGLGSTCQFQVANALDLPFASDSFDWVWSLESGEHMPNKAQ                      * :*****. ** ***   .*.   ** ****  :** .:*** **********:*:: Nostoc punctiforme FLQECYRVLKPGGKLIMVTWCHRPTD-- ESPLTADEEKHLQDIYRVYCLPYVISLPEYEA Anabaena sp.     FLQECYRVLKPGGKLIMVTWCHRPTD-- KTPLTADEKKHLEDIYRVYCLPYVISLPEYEA Synechocystis FLQEAWRVLKPGGRLILATWCHRPIDPGNGPLTADERRHLQAIYDVYCLPYVVSLPDYEA                    ****.:*******:**:.****** *  : ******.:**: ** *******:***:*** Nostoc punctiforme IAHQLPLHNIRTADWSTAVAPFWNVVIDSAFTPQALWGLLNAGWTTIQGALSLGLMRRGY Anabaena sp. IARQLPLNNIRTADWSQSVAQFWNIVIDSAFTPQAIFGLLRAGWTTIQGALSLGLMRRGY Synechocystis IARECGFGEIKTADWSVAVAPFWDRVIESAFDPRVLWALGQAGPKIINAALCLRLMKWGY                    **::  : :*:***** :** **: **:*** *:.::.* .** . *:.**.* **: ** Nostoc punctiforme ERGLIRFGLLCGNK--- (SEQ ID NO: 39) Anabaena sp.       ERGLIRFGLLCGDK--- (SEQ ID NO: 40) Synechocystis      ERGLVRFGLLTGIKPLV (SEQ ID NO: 41)                    ****:***** * *

The sequence of the Synechocystis MT1 (NCBI General Identifier Number 1653572) is used in a blast search against ESTs of other cyanobacteria at the ERGO website (www.integratedgenomics.com/IGwit/).

Three sequences with substantial homology to the Synechocystis MT1 are found from three cyanobacteria species. These sequences are all annotated as having a function of DELTA(24)-STEROL C-METHYLTRANSFERASE (EC 2.1.1.41)

BlastP SCORE Anabaena sp.  1e−144 504 Synechococcus sp. 6e−98 350 Prochlorococcus marinus 2e−84 304

TABLE 4 CYANOBACTERIA MT1 CLUSTAL W (1.8) MULTIPLE SEQUENCE ALIGNMENT Synechocystis MPEYLLLPAGLISLSLAIAAGLYLLTARGYQSSDSVANAYDQWTEDGILEYYWGDHIHLG Anabaena -MSWLFSTLVFFLTLLTAGIALYLITARRYQSSNSVANSYDQWTEDGILEFYWGEHIHLG Synechococcus ---MLAGLLLLTGAAGATALLIWLQRDRRYHSSDSVAAAYDAWTDDQLLERLWGDHVHLG Prochlorococcus MSIFLISSLVIFLTLLFSSLILWRINTRKYISSRTVATAYDSWTQDKLLERLWGEHIHLG     *     :       .  ::    * * ** :** :** **:* :**  **:*:*** Synechocystis HYGDPPVAKDFIQSKIDFVHAMAQWGGLDTLPPGTTVLDVGCGIGGSSRILAKDYGFNVT Anabaena HYGSPPQRKDFLVAKSDFVHEMVRWGGLDKLPPGTTLLDVGCGIGGSSRILARDYGFAVT Synechococcus HYGNPPGSVDFRQAKEAFVHELVRWSGLDQLPRGSRVLDVGCGIGGSARILARDYGLDVL Prochlorococcus FYP-LNKNIDFREAKVQFVHELVSWSGLDKLPRGSRILDVGCGIGGSSRILANYYGFNVT .*       **  :*  *** :. *.*** ** *: :**********:****. **: * Synechocystis GITISPQQVKRATELTPPDVTAKFAVDDAMALSFPDGSFDVVWSVEAGPHMPDKAVFAKE Anabaena GITISPQQVQRAQELTPQELNAQFLVDDAMALSFPDNSFDVVWSIEAGPHMPDKAIFAKE Synechococcus GVSISPAQIRRATELTPAGLSCRFEVMDALNLQLPDRQFDAVWTVEAGPHMPDKQRFADE Prochlorococcus GITISPAQVKRAKELTPYECKCNFKVMDALDLKFEEGIFDGVWSVEAGAHMNNKTKFADQ *::*** *::** ****   ...* * **: *.: :  ** **::***.** :*  **.: Synechocystis LLRVVKPGGILVVADWNQRDDRQVPLNFWEKPVMRQLLDQWSHPAFASIEGFAENLEATG Anabaena LMRVLKPGGIMVLADWNQRDDRQKPLNFWEKPVMQQLLDQWSHPAFSSIEGFSELLAATG Synechococcus LLRVLRPGGCLAAADWNRRAPKDGAMNSTERWVMRQLLNQWAHPEFASISGFRANLEASP Prochlorococcus MLRTLRPGGYLALADWNSRDLQKQPPSMIEKIILKQLLEQWVHPKFISINEFSSILINNK ::*.::*** :. **** *  :. . .  *: :::***:** ** * **. *   *  . Synechocystis LVEGQVTTADWTVPTLPAWLDTIWQGIIRPQGWLQYGIRGFIKSVREVPTILLMRLAFGV Anabaena LVEGEVITADWTKQTLPSWLDSIWQGIVRPEGLVRFGLSGFIKSLREVPTLLLMRLAFGT Synechococcus HQRGLISTGDWTLATLPSWFDSIAEGLRRPWAVLGLGPKAVLQGLRETPTLLLMHWAFAT Prochlorococcus NSSGQVISSNWNSFTNPSWFDSIFEGMRRPNSILSLGPGAIIKSIREIPTILLMDWAFKK    * : :.:*.  * *:*:*:* :*: ** . :  *  ..::.:** **:***  ** Synechocystis GLCRFGMFKAVRKNATQA-------------  (SEQ ID NO: 46) Anabaena GLCRFGMFRALRADTVRSSAEQTSAIKVAQK  (SEQ ID NO: 47) Synechococcus GLMQFGVFRLSR-------------------  (SEQ ID NO: 48) Prochlorococcus GLMEFGVYKCRG-------------------  (SEQ ID NO: 49) ** .**:::

EXAMPLE 2

Constructs are prepared to direct expression of the Arabidopsis, P4 and S8 Brassica napus, Cuphea pulcherrima, and Gossypium hirsutum GMT sequences in plants. The coding region of each GMT is amplified from either the appropriate EST clone or cDNA, as appropriate. Double stranded DNA sequence is obtained of all PCR products to verify that no errors are introduced by the PCR amplification.

An S8 Brassica GMT coding sequence is amplified from Brassica napus leaf cDNA as follows: PolyA⁺ RNA is isolated from Brassica napus (var. Quantum) leaf tissue using an adapted biotin/streptavadin procedure based on the “mRNA Capture Kit” by Roche Molecular Biochemicals (Indianapolis, Ind.). Young leaf tissue is homogenized in CTAB buffer (50 mM Tris-HCl pH 9, 0.8M NaCl, 0.5% CTAB, 10 mM EDTA), extracted with chloroform, and pelleted. As specified by the manufacturer's instructions, polyA⁺ RNA in the soluble fraction is hybridized to biotin-labeled oligo-dT, immobilized on streptavadin-coated PCR tubes and washed. First strand cDNA is synthesized using the “1^(st) strand cDNA synthesis kit for RT-PCR” (Roche Molecular Biochemicals) in a 50 μl volume according to the manufacturer's protocol. Following the cDNA synthesis, the soluble contents of the tube are replaced with equal volume amplification reaction mixture. Components of the mixture at final concentration consisted of: 1× Buffer 2 (EXPAND High Fidelity PCR System, Roche Molecular Biochemicals), 200 μM dNTPs, 0.5 units RNAseH, 300 nM each synthetic oligonucleotide primers #16879 (SEQ ID NO: 51) and #16880 (SEQ ID NO: 52) and 0.4 μl EXPAND High Fidelity Polymerase (Roche Molecular Biochemicals).

A GMT gene is PCR amplified for 30 cycles using a “touchdown” cycling profile: 15 min pre-incubation at 37° C. followed by a 3 min pre-incubation at 94° C., during which EXPAND polymerase is spiked into the mix. The product is then amplified for 15 cycles consisting of denaturation at 94° C. for 30 sec, annealing at 65° C. for 30 sec, and elongation at 72° C. for 1.5 min. The annealing temperature is decreased by 1° C. per cycle for each of the previous 15 cycles. An additional 15 cycles followed, consisting of 94° C. for 30 sec, 50° C. for 30 sec, and 72° C. for 1.5 min, followed by a 7 min hold at 72° C.

The resulting PCR product is desalted using the Pharmacia “MICROSPIN S-400 HR Column” (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden) then cloned into the vector pCR2.1 using the “TOPO TA Cloning® Kit” (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, Calif.) according to manufacturer's instructions. The resultant intermediate plasmid is named pMON67178 and confirmed by DNA sequencing. A pMON67178 intermediate plasmid is digested with the restriction endonucleases NotI and Sse8387I to liberate a S8 Brassica GMT insert, which is then gel-purified using the “QIAQUICK Gel Extraction Kit” (QIAGEN Inc., Valencia, Calif.). The vector pCGN9979 (FIG. 2) is prepared by digesting with NotI and Sse8387I endonucleases. Enzymes are subsequently removed using “StrataClean Resin™” (Stratagene, La Jolla, Calif.) followed by “MICROSPIN S-400 HR Column” treatment (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden). A GMT insert is ligated into the pCGN9979 vector, resulting in the formation of the binary construct pMON67170.

An Arabidopsis GMT coding sequence is amplified from Arabidopsis thaliana, ecotype Columbia using the same methodology as described above for the S8 Brassica GMT with the exceptions that RNAseH is not added to the amplification reaction mixture, and the synthetic oligonucleotide primers are #16562 (SEQ ID NO: 75) and #16563 (SEQ ID NO: 76). The resulting PCR product is desalted using the Pharmacia “MICROSPIN S-400 HR Column” (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden) then cloned into the vector pCR2.1 using the “TOPO TA Cloning® Kit” (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, Calif.) according to manufacturer's instructions. The resultant intermediate plasmid is named pMON67155 and confirmed by DNA sequencing. The pMON67155 intermediate plasmid is digested with the restriction endonucleases NotI and Sse8387I to liberate an Arabidopsis thaliana GMT insert, which is then gel-purified using the “QIAQUICK Gel Extraction Kit” (QIAGEN Inc., Valencia, Calif.). The vector pCGN9979 is prepared by digesting with NotI and Sse8387I endonucleases. Enzymes are subsequently removed using “StrataClean Resin™” (Stratagene, La Jolla, Calif.) followed by “MICROSPIN S-400 HR Column” treatment (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden). A GMT insert is ligated into the pCGN9979 vector, resulting in the formation of the binary construct pMON67156.

A P4 Brassica GMT coding sequence is amplified from Brassica napus leaf cDNA using the same methodology as described above for the S8 Brassica GMT with the exceptions that RNAseH is not added to the amplification reaction mixture, and the synthetic oligonucleotide primers are #16655 (SEQ ID NO: 53) and #16654 (SEQ ID NO: 54). A “touchdown” cycling conditions consisted of a pre-incubation for 3 min at 94° C., during which 0.4 μl EXPAND polymerase is spiked into the mix. The product is then amplified with 15 cycles of denaturation at 94° C. for 30 sec, annealing at 60° C. for 30 sec, and elongation at 72° C. for 1.5 min. The annealing temperature is decreased by 1° C. per cycle for each of the previous 15 cycles. An additional 15 cycles followed, consisting of 94° C. for 30 sec, 45° C. for 30 sec, and 72° C. for 1.5 min, followed by a 7 min hold at 72° C.

The resulting PCR product is desalted using the Pharmacia “MicroSpin™ S-400 HR Column” (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden) then cloned into the GATEWAY vector pDONR™201 using the “PCR Cloning System with GATEWAY Technology” (Life Technologies, a Division of Invitrogen Corporation, Rockville, Md.), according to the manufacturer's instructions. The ensuing plasmid pMON68751 is confirmed by DNA sequencing.

A P4 Brassica GMT is then cloned from the pMON68751 donor vector into the pMON67150 destination vector, which is the GATEWAY-compatible version of the pCGN9979 Napin binary. The “E. coli Expression Systems with GATEWAY Technology” kit (Life Technologies, a Division of Invitrogen Corporation, Rockville, Md.) is used according to the manufacturer's instructions to create the expression clone pMON67159.

A Cuphea pulcherrima GMT coding sequence is amplified from the EST clone LIB3792-031-Q1-K1-F₃ using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers #16658 (SEQ ID NO: 55) and #16659 (SEQ ID NO: 56). 1.0 μl of EST template is used for the Cuphea GMT amplification reaction. Otherwise, amplification conditions and cycling parameters are identical to those of P4 Brassica GMT.

Using the same GATEWAY procedure as described above for the P4 Brassica GMT coding region, a Cuphea GMT PCR product is cloned into the pDONR™201 vector to create pMON68752, then subcloned into the Napin expression vector pMON67150 to create pMON67158.

A Gossypium hirsutum GMT coding sequence is amplified from the EST clone LIB3584-003-PI-K1-A1 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers #16681 (SEQ ID NO: 57) and #16682 (SEQ ID NO: 58). 0.5 μl of EST template is used for the Gossypium GMT amplification reaction. Otherwise, amplification conditions and cycling parameters are identical to those of P4 Brassica GMT.

Using the same GATEWAY procedure as described above for the P4 Brassica GMT coding region, a Gossypium GMT PCR product is cloned into the pDONR™201 vector to create pMON67161, then subcloned into a napin expression vector pMON67150 to create pMON67160.

The napin cassette derived from pCGN3223 (described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,639,790) is used to drive the expression of GMT sequences in seeds. GMT sequences are cloned into the multiple cloning site of the napin cassette using either a Not/Sse8387I digest (pMON67178) or the gateway cloning system (Gibco BRL) in a binary vector suitable for plant transformation (pCGN9979).

The resulting plasmids containing the gene of interest in the plant binary transformation vector under the control of the napin promoter are labeled as follows pMON67156 (Arabidopsis thaliana, Columbia ecotype), pMON67170 (S8 Brassica napus GMT), pMON67159 (P4 Brassica napus GMT), pMON 67158 (Cuphea pulcherrima GMT), and pMON 67160 (Gossypium hirsutum GMT).

The plant binary constructs described above are used in Arabidopsis thaliana plant transformation to direct the expression of the gamma-methyltransferases in the embryo. Binary vector constructs are transformed into ABI strain Agrobacterium cells by the method of Holsters et al. Mol. Gen. Genet. 163:181-187 (1978). Transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants are obtained by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation as described by Valverkens et al., Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 85:5536-5540 (1988), Bent et al., Science 265:1856-1860 (1994), and Bechtold et al., C.R. Acad. Sci., Life Sciences 316:1194-1199 (1993). Transgenic plants are selected by sprinkling the transformed T₁ seeds directly onto soil and then vernalizing them at 4° C. in the absence of light for 4 days. The seeds are then transferred to 21° C., 16 hours light and sprayed with a 1:200 dilution of FINALE (Basta) at 7 days and 14 days after seeding. Transformed plants are grown to maturity and the T₂ seed that is produced is analyzed for tocopherol content. FIGS. 21 a, 21 b, 22 a, and 22 b show the tocopherol analysis from T2 seed of transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants expressing GMTs from different sources under the control of the napin seed-specific promoter. FIG. 23 is a graph showing average seed α-tocopherol levels for various lines of transformed plants. In FIG. 23, the plant lines shown have the following GMT sequence origins: 67156=Arabidopsis GMT, 67158=Cuphea GMT, 67159=Brassica (P4)GMT, 67160=Cotton GMT, and 67170=Brassica (S8) GMT. Table 5 below gives specific tocopherol level results for various transformed and control plant lines.

TABLE 5 ng α ng β ng γ ng δ ng total toco/mg toco/mg toco/mg toco/mg toco/mg % Avg. seed seed seed seed seed Line Number A. description Gen. Alpha Alpha % 6.64 15.28 494.91 13.16 529.99 9979-36 9979 = vector control 1.3 1.3 6.07 15.69 490.82 13.66 526.23 9979-37 9979 = vector control 1.2 6.57 16.79 492.59 12.37 528.32 9979-38 9979 = vector control 1.2 7.76 17.16 513.41 15.76 554.09 9979-39 9979 = vector control 1.4 8.44 15.62 508.64 15.94 548.64 9979-40 9979 = vector control 1.5 291.45 21.86 180.41 4.96 498.69 67156-8 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 58.4 75.5 275.80 20.49 141.25 3.05 440.59 67156-6 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 62.6 289.41 21.00 138.56 3.73 452.70 67156-12 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 63.9 312.57 22.56 128.32 2.91 466.36 67156-5 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 67.0 302.71 20.69 113.96 2.53 439.89 67156-3 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 68.8 329.09 24.38 118.80 3.37 475.65 67156-1 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 69.2 352.00 21.78 128.75 3.54 506.08 67156-9 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 69.6 304.60 19.54 110.64 2.65 437.43 67156-11 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 69.6 337.70 24.25 109.93 2.86 474.74 67156-15 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 71.1 359.35 20.72 39.85 0.31 420.23 67156-13 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 85.5 367.77 22.54 35.41 0.35 426.08 67156-14 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 86.3 373.10 22.67 27.93 0.11 423.82 67156-10 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 88.0 383.43 23.64 24.00 0.26 431.33 67156-2 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 88.9 385.72 22.61 10.77 0.00 419.10 67156-4 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 92.0 412.47 27.18 13.00 0.21 452.86 67156-7 67156 = napin GMT arab T2 91.1 296.50 23.38 163.93 7.58 491.39 67159-3 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 60.3 69.1 327.29 3.46 192.06 9.38 532.18 67159-13 Brassica P4 GMT T2 61.5 294.64 18.61 148.42 6.93 468.60 67159-2 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 62.9 309.72 21.32 152.46 6.20 489.70 67159-7 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 63.2 300.73 21.11 142.66 5.67 470.18 67519-1 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 64.0 305.37 20.25 141.83 7.85 475.29 67159-10 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 64.2 311.90 20.92 145.60 6.91 485.33 67159-5 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 64.3 289.83 19.63 128.07 6.33 443.86 67159-12 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 65.3 302.93 17.84 127.91 5.36 454.03 67159-6 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 66.7 348.38 19.53 103.12 7.50 478.53 67159-9 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 72.8 329.10 20.27 78.65 4.28 432.30 67159-15 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 76.1 359.15 23.04 70.61 4.95 457.76 67159-11 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 78.5 358.83 19.79 68.26 4.79 451.67 67159-14 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 79.4 398.21 19.29 32.82 3.20 453.52 67159-4 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T2 87.8 3.97 0.00 494.67 15.15 513.79 9979-81 control 0.8 0.8 3.32 0.00 501.58 18.47 523.37 9979-82 control 0.6 4.00 0.00 492.08 15.31 511.38 9979-83 control 0.8 4.19 0.00 541.20 18.42 563.81 9979-84 control 0.7 5.23 0.00 541.75 20.12 567.10 9979-85 control 0.9 251.34 10.02 216.55 6.77 484.68 67158-8 napin Cuphea GMT T2 51.9 77.3 325.52 10.51 156.76 5.32 498.11 67158-11 napin Cuphea GMT T2 65.4 338.00 10.58 155.40 5.35 509.33 67158-12 napin Cuphea GMT T2 66.4 322.09 8.99 139.84 4.74 475.66 67158-5 napin Cuphea GMT T2 67.7 348.47 12.70 132.54 5.14 498.85 67158-10 napin Cuphea GMT T2 69.9 369.43 14.85 135.94 4.49 524.71 67158-15 napin Cuphea GMT T2 70.4 324.99 9.08 123.23 3.95 461.25 67158-4 napin Cuphea GMT T2 70.5 358.91 8.49 108.56 3.76 479.72 67158-9 napin Cuphea GMT T2 74.8 363.29 14.16 84.19 3.45 465.09 67158-3 napin Cuphea GMT T2 78.1 375.18 9.78 46.59 2.39 433.94 67158-1 napin Cuphea GMT T2 86.5 425.61 13.14 39.87 2.71 481.32 67158-13 napin Cuphea GMT T2 88.4 415.44 13.75 33.16 2.01 464.35 67158-7 napin Cuphea GMT T2 89.5 452.35 15.65 21.65 3.46 493.10 67158-2 napin Cuphea GMT T2 91.7 430.11 20.33 9.67 0.00 460.11 67158-14 napin Cuphea GMT T2 93.5 408.68 13.89 7.13 1.22 430.92 67158-6 napin Cuphea GMT T2 94.8 6.18 0.00 510.97 19.47 536.62 9979-86 control 1.2 0.9 4.33 0.00 547.85 21.06 573.24 9979-87 control 0.8 6.28 0.00 503.21 19.67 529.17 9979-88 control 1.2 4.35 0.00 538.55 21.08 563.98 9979-89 control 0.8 3.45 0.00 523.43 19.31 546.19 9979-90 control 0.6 5.52 0.47 478.70 17.54 502.23 67160-7 napin cotton GMT T2 1.1 65.1 8.11 0.00 552.24 21.34 581.69 67160-15 napin cotton GMT T2 1.4 324.58 7.93 177.97 7.70 518.18 67160-9 napin cotton GMT T2 62.6 338.02 7.43 160.27 9.11 514.82 67160-1 napin cotton GMT T2 65.7 345.35 9.94 159.12 7.51 521.92 67160-5 napin cotton GMT T2 66.2 355.54 9.65 155.73 6.95 527.87 67160-14 napin cotton GMT T2 67.4 371.70 14.34 142.80 6.58 535.43 67160-2 napin cotton GMT T2 69.4 355.35 5.96 135.17 9.11 505.59 67160-11 napin cotton GMT T2 70.3 360.43 7.03 136.83 7.76 512.05 67160-6 napin cotton GMT T2 70.4 373.32 9.65 138.68 7.74 529.39 67160-4 napin cotton GMT T2 70.5 374.20 10.97 89.34 4.57 479.07 67160-3 napin cotton GMT T2 78.1 435.98 16.16 67.09 4.81 524.03 67160-8 napin cotton GMT T2 83.2 446.18 13.59 44.43 3.54 507.74 67160-12 napin cotton GMT T2 87.9 420.34 13.54 26.74 2.51 463.12 67160-10 napin cotton GMT T2 90.8 465.41 15.32 21.78 2.69 505.21 67160-13 napin cotton GMT T2 92.1 3.98 0.00 502.78 15.54 522.30 9979-94 control 0.8 0.8 4.27 0.00 510.20 17.15 531.62 9979-93 control 0.8 4.42 0.00 549.18 18.50 572.10 9979-91 control 0.8 4.43 0.00 480.59 14.35 499.38 9979-95 control 0.9 5.22 0.00 538.48 19.08 562.78 9979-92 control 0.9 306.93 7.18 193.74 7.25 515.10 67170-3 Brassica S8 GMT T2 59.6 77.8 364.13 8.20 151.34 5.92 529.59 67170-6 Brassica S8 GMT T2 68.8 355.93 6.18 137.59 5.36 505.06 67170-2 Brassica S8 GMT T2 70.5 381.42 8.51 142.79 6.09 538.82 67170-14 Brassica S8 GMT T2 70.8 372.06 5.24 130.94 4.04 512.28 67170-9 Brassica S8 GMT T2 72.6 368.24 7.38 108.85 4.32 488.79 67170-1 Brassica S8 GMT T2 75.3 374.71 5.53 97.22 3.29 480.75 67170-15 Brassica S8 GMT T2 77.9 419.64 11.39 88.39 4.20 523.61 67170-5 Brassica S8 GMT T2 80.1 408.32 3.44 88.98 6.94 507.68 67170-11 Brassica S8 GMT T2 80.4 438.52 10.27 55.07 3.73 507.59 67170-8 Brassica S8 GMT T2 86.4 452.28 12.04 49.76 2.65 516.72 67170-7 Brassica S8 GMT T2 87.5 461.35 10.82 51.41 2.62 526.20 67170-4 Brassica S8 GMT T2 87.7 458.39 10.45 17.75 1.16 487.76 67170-12 Brassica S8 GMT T2 94.0 5.31 0.00 528.79 20.48 554.59 1 9979 1.0 1.1 5.91 0.00 543.96 21.53 571.40 2 9979 1.0 5.26 0.00 515.35 18.45 539.07 3 9979 1.0 6.52 0.00 509.65 19.20 535.37 4 9979 1.2 7.70 0.00 537.19 22.97 567.87 5 9979 1.4 5.21 0.00 511.12 19.85 536.17 6 9979 1.0 301.07 4.48 125.80 7.99 439.34 2-8 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 68.5 68.1 306.33 3.22 169.37 8.75 487.68 2-3 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 62.8 320.26 6.05 167.87 8.65 502.84 2-4 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 63.7 329.45 7.12 169.63 9.21 515.41 2-2 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 63.9 329.53 5.80 152.26 8.99 496.59 2-5 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 66.4 334.46 5.82 145.10 8.16 493.54 2-6 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 67.8 335.46 4.25 141.18 8.39 489.28 2-7 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 68.6 344.53 8.17 145.61 9.24 507.54 2-1 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 67.9 401.15 5.41 68.31 8.01 482.88 2-9 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 83.1 345.21 3.07 161.54 11.71 521.53 4-2 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 66.2 89.2 431.50 6.46 56.16 6.72 500.83 4-9 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 86.2 445.25 5.69 20.55 7.24 478.73 4-8 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 93.0 445.71 5.48 20.58 6.60 478.36 4-3 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 93.2 446.77 7.74 14.86 5.03 474.41 4-7 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 94.2 452.65 8.96 49.76 7.52 518.89 4-4 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 87.2 454.02 8.09 14.05 5.10 481.26 4-6 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 94.3 467.24 9.65 11.93 4.93 493.75 4-1 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 94.6 517.68 12.95 13.39 5.10 549.12 4-5 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 94.3 347.03 2.66 155.38 8.28 513.35 7-5 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 67.6 81.9 350.32 0.48 132.12 8.20 491.12 7-7 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 71.3 352.48 1.50 141.14 8.26 503.37 7-2 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 70.0 367.65 1.04 134.34 7.75 510.78 7-8 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 72.0 372.23 0.00 125.08 7.40 504.71 7-6 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 73.8 454.16 7.27 10.99 3.38 475.80 7-4 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 95.5 464.63 6.08 10.50 3.10 484.31 7-9 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 95.9 467.40 6.99 11.11 3.82 489.32 7-1 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 95.5 474.28 8.23 11.61 4.65 498.77 7-3 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 95.1 324.79 0.00 179.06 11.83 515.68 11-7 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 63.0 82.2 334.92 0.00 175.60 11.84 522.35 11-2 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 64.1 352.84 0.00 170.23 12.16 535.22 11-5 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 65.9 425.54 4.66 49.26 5.84 485.30 11-3 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 87.7 427.09 5.61 61.10 6.38 500.18 11-4 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 85.4 448.32 6.34 12.02 4.67 471.35 11-6 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 95.1 462.49 7.21 42.46 7.43 519.59 11-1 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 89.0 464.30 4.97 12.86 5.43 487.55 11-9 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 95.2 469.00 4.57 16.21 5.08 494.86 11-8 67159 = brassica P4 GMT T3 94.8 427.19 7.33 43.05 4.39 481.96 4-9 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 88.6 94.0 429.83 3.85 47.80 3.09 484.57 4-8 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 88.7 442.62 8.97 45.02 3.71 500.32 4-4 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 88.5 449.25 4.88 13.31 2.54 469.99 4-2 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 95.6 454.35 6.96 2.91 2.58 466.79 4-5 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 97.3 459.55 7.20 2.75 1.43 470.94 4-6 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 97.6 467.64 9.17 5.77 2.51 485.09 4-3 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 96.4 469.22 7.89 9.04 3.43 489.58 4-1 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 95.8 476.93 6.07 3.18 2.68 488.85 4-7 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 97.6 341.52 0.00 152.78 6.96 501.27 7-1 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 68.1 90.7 426.76 3.74 55.93 7.18 493.62 7-2 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 86.5 427.82 2.42 36.53 3.79 470.56 7-7 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 90.9 448.96 3.62 8.76 3.29 464.62 7-9 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 96.6 455.79 5.26 12.41 3.45 476.91 7-6 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 95.6 457.18 6.56 21.53 2.89 488.16 7-5 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 93.7 461.11 6.33 8.82 3.36 479.62 7-8 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 96.1 462.08 7.10 16.36 3.59 489.14 7-4 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 94.5 466.01 7.72 15.40 4.54 493.68 7-3 67156 = napin GMT arab T3 94.4 5.09 0.00 535.79 19.35 560.22 9979-81:@.0005. Control 0.9 5.37 0.00 534.93 21.47 561.77 9979-81:@.0006. Control 1.0 327.76 22.52 156.62 9.37 516.27 67158-2:@.0002. napin Cuphea GMT T3 63.5 85.2 384.99 24.97 92.36 7.82 510.14 67158-2:@.0001. napin Cuphea GMT T3 75.5 406.19 27.74 3.42 2.12 439.47 67158-2:@.0006. napin Cuphea GMT T3 92.4 424.62 22.33 34.40 6.92 488.27 67158-2:@.0009. napin Cuphea GMT T3 87.0 432.70 25.03 52.96 8.60 519.29 67158-2:@.0004. napin Cuphea GMT T3 83.3 443.67 25.50 46.41 8.22 523.80 67158-2:@.0003. napin Cuphea GMT T3 84.7 449.38 26.25 4.06 2.34 482.03 67158-2:@.0005. napin Cuphea GMT T3 93.2 449.63 25.26 2.17 1.84 478.89 67158-2:@.0008. napin Cuphea GMT T3 93.9 451.00 25.32 6.56 2.74 485.63 67158-2:@.0007. napin Cuphea GMT T3 92.9 312.62 22.03 153.68 6.73 495.05 67158-4:@.0007. napin Cuphea GMT T3 63.1 75.7 326.50 23.50 131.44 6.54 487.99 67158-4:@.0001. napin Cuphea GMT T3 66.9 327.91 22.51 143.83 7.42 501.67 67158-4:@.0005. napin Cuphea GMT T3 65.4 331.65 24.40 137.74 7.20 500.98 67158-4:@.0009. napin Cuphea GMT T3 66.2 345.95 24.75 134.17 6.75 511.62 67158-4:@.0006. napin Cuphea GMT T3 67.6 355.47 24.91 120.77 6.50 507.65 67158-4:@.0003. napin Cuphea GMT T3 70.0 448.67 24.98 0.92 1.97 476.54 67158-4:@.0004. napin Cuphea GMT T3 94.2 453.62 25.23 0.98 1.59 481.42 67158-4:@.0008. napin Cuphea GMT T3 94.2 456.45 27.19 1.34 1.92 486.91 67158-4:@.0002. napin Cuphea GMT T3 93.7 6.39 0.00 498.67 24.65 529.71 9979-81:@.0007. Control 1.2 6.65 0.00 520.22 19.20 546.08 9979--81:@.0008. Control 1.2 325.71 19.95 154.88 8.09 508.64 67158-9:@.0007. napin Cuphea GMT T3 64.0 68.4 330.27 21.90 154.36 8.08 514.61 67158-9:@.0005. napin Cuphea GMT T3 64.2 347.97 22.33 129.57 6.54 506.41 67158-9:@.0004. napin Cuphea GMT T3 68.7 351.68 22.59 122.64 6.96 503.87 67158-9:@.0006. napin Cuphea GMT T3 69.8 353.74 22.51 118.23 6.90 501.38 67158--9:@.0001. napin Cuphea GMT T3 70.6 354.17 23.30 137.47 7.50 522.44 67158--9:@.0002. napin Cuphea GMT T3 67.8 358.21 21.84 132.99 6.76 519.80 67158-9:@.0009. napin Cuphea GMT T3 68.9 362.74 22.40 114.96 6.69 506.79 67158-9:@.0008. napin Cuphea GMT T3 71.6 362.98 24.28 124.73 6.50 518.49 67158-9:@.0003. napin Cuphea GMT T3 70.0 403.35 26.19 33.39 3.08 466.02 67158-14:@.0003. napin Cuphea GMT T3 86.6 90.0 416.91 26.96 34.74 3.21 481.83 67158-14:@.0002. napin Cuphea GMT T3 86.5 423.10 22.19 36.04 3.17 484.50 67158-14:@.0008. napin Cuphea GMT T3 87.3 424.87 26.52 4.48 1.62 457.49 67158--14:@.0004. napin Cuphea GMT T3 92.9 428.75 23.34 24.92 5.13 482.14 67158-14:@.0009. napin Cuphea GMT T3 88.9 433.96 30.08 5.32 2.24 471.61 67158--14:@.0001. napin Cuphea GMT T3 92.0 434.51 29.70 20.34 1.90 486.44 67158-14:@.0005. napin Cuphea GMT T3 89.3 435.86 23.44 3.27 1.75 464.33 67158-14:@.0006. napin Cuphea GMT T3 93.9 440.46 23.40 10.67 2.27 476.80 67158-14:@.0007. napin Cuphea GMT T3 92.4

EXAMPLE 3

Computer programs are used to predict the chloroplast targeting peptide cleavage sites of the plant GMT proteins. The predictions of CTPs by using two programs: “Predotar” and “ChloroP” (Center for Biological Sequence Analysis, Lyngby, Denmark) are as follows

1) Program: Predotar

Sequence ID Score Cut Site P-Value Gossypium 4.56 49 * 50 3.0496E+07 Brassica 2.27 51 * 52 2.3192E+05 Cuphea 1.96 undetermined 2.7934E−01 2) Chloroplast Target Peptide Prediction Results Number of query sequences: 5

Name Length Score cTP CS-score cTP-length Arabidopsis 348 0.587 Y 7.834 50 Gossypium 345 0.580 Y 4.116 48 Brassica 347 0.581 Y 8.142 51 Cuphea 376 0.573 Y 1.746 64 Zea mays 352 0.560 Y 4.808 48

Based on this information GMT proteins from plant sources are engineered to remove the predicted chloroplast target peptides to allow for the expression of the mature protein in E. coli. In order for these proteins to be expressed in a prokaryotic expression system, an amino terminal methionine is required. This can be accomplished, for example, by the addition of a 5′ ATG. A methionine is added to each of the following amino acid sequences, which are expressed in E. coli with detectable GMT activity (SEQ ID NOs: 33-38 each have the added methionine as the first amino acid in the sequence): Mature S8 Brassica napus GMT protein as expressed in E. coli (SEQ ID NO: 33); Mature P4 Brassica napus GMT protein as expressed in E. coli (SEQ ID NO: 34); Mature Cuphea pulcherrima GMT protein as expressed in E. coli (SEQ ID NO: 35); Mature Gossypium hirsutum GMT protein as expressed in E. coli (SEQ ID NO: 36); Mature Tagetes erecta (Marigold) GMT protein as expressed in E. coli (SEQ ID NO:37); Mature Zea mays (Corn) GMT protein as expressed in E. coli (SEQ ID NO: 38).

Constructs are prepared to direct expression of the mature P4 and S8 Brassica napus, Cuphea pulcherrima, Gossypium hirsutum, Tagetes erecta, and Zea mays GMT sequences in a prokaryotic expression vector. The mature protein-coding region of each GMT with the aminoterminal methionine, as described previously, is amplified from plasmid DNA using the following species specific oligonucleotide primers in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Components of each 100 μl PCR reaction at final concentration consisted of: 1.0 genomic DNA or 1.0 μl plasmid DNA diluted 1:20 with water, as appropriate, 1× Buffer 2 (EXPAND High Fidelity PCR System, Roche Molecular Biochemicals), 200 μM dNTPs, 300 nM each, synthetic oligonucleotide primers, and 0.81 μl EXPAND High Fidelity Polymerase (Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Indianapolis, Ind.).

“Touchdown” cycling conditions consisted of a pre-incubation for 3 min at 94° C., during which the EXPAND polymerase is spiked into the mix. The product is then amplified with 15 cycles of denaturation at 94° C. for 45 sec, annealing at 70° C. for 30 sec, and elongation at 72° C. for 1.5 min. The annealing temperature is decreased by 1° C. per cycle for each of the previous 15 cycles. An additional 15 cycles followed, consisting of 94° C. for 45 sec, 55° C. for 30 sec, and 72° C. for 1.5 min, followed by a 7 min hold at 72° C.

A mature S8 Brassica GMT coding sequence is amplified from pMON67170 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: #16765 (SEQ ID NO: 59) and #16654 (SEQ ID NO: 60).

A mature P4 Brassica GMT coding sequence is amplified from pMON67159 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: #16765 (SEQ ID NO: 59) and #16654 (SEQ ID NO: 60).

A mature Cuphea pulcherrima GMT coding sequence is amplified from pMON67158 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: #16763 (SEQ ID NO: 61) and #16659 (SEQ ID NO: 62).

A mature Gossypium hirsutum GMT coding sequence is amplified from pMON67160 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: #16764 (SEQ ID NO: 63) and #16682 (SEQ ID NO: 64).

A mature Tagetes erecta GMT coding sequence is amplified from the EST clone LIB3100-001-Q1-M1-E2 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: #16766 (SEQ ID NO: 65) and #16768 (SEQ ID NO: 66).

A mature Zea mays GMT coding region is amplified from the EST clone LIB3689-262-Q1-K1-D6 using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: 5′GGG GAC AAG TTT GTA CAA AAA AGC AGG CTT AGA AGG AGA TAG AAC CAT GGC CTC GTC GAC GGC TCA GGC CC3′ (SEQ ID NO: 73) and 5′GGG GAC CAC TTT GTA CAA GAA AGC TGG GTC CTG CAG GCT ACG CGG CTC CAG GCT TGC GAC AG (SEQ ID NO: 74).

A GMT coding region from Nostoc punctiforme (ATCC 29133) is amplified from genomic DNA. Genomic DNA is isolated from 3 day cultures of the cyanobacteria according to the procedure of Chisholm (CYANONEWS, Vol. 6. No. 3 (1990)). Cultures are centrifuged and the supernatent discarded. Pellets are suspended in 400 μl TES (TES: 2.5 ml of 1 M Tris, pH 8.5; 5 ml of 5 M NaCl; 5 ml of 500 mM EDTA, bring volume to 500 ml.) To the suspended pellet, 100 μl lysozyme (50 mg/ml) is added and the suspension incubated for 15 minutes at 37° C. with occasional mixing. To this, 50 μl sarkosyl (10%) is added. Protein is extracted by adding 600 μl phenol and incubating at room temperature with gentle shaking. The phases are separated by centrifugation and the aqueous phase is transferred to a new tube. RNase is added to a final concentration of 1.0 mg/ml and the solution is incubated for 15 minutes at 37° C. To this solution 100 μl NaCl (5M), 100 μl CTAB/NaCl (CTAB/NaCl: To 80 ml of water, add 4.1 g of NaCl, then 10 g CTAB, heat to 65° C. to dissolve, bring volume to 100 ml), and 600 μl chloroform are added and the solution incubated 15 minutes at room temperature with gentle shaking. The phases are separated by centrifugation and the aqueous phase is transferred to a new tube. 700 μl isopropanol is added to precipitate DNA. The sample is centrifuged for 15 minutes at 14,000 rpms in a micro-centrifuge to pellet genomic DNA. The pellet is rinsed with 70% ethanol, dried briefly in a SPEEDVAC and the genomic DNA is suspended in 100 μl TE. DNA concentration, as determined by spectrophotometry, is 79 μg/ml.

Nostoc GMT amplification reactions contained 79 ng genomic DNA, 2.5 μl 20×dNTPs 2.5 μl of each of the following primers: 5′GGG GAC AAG TTT GTA CAA AAA AGC AGG CTT AGA AGG AGA TAG AAC CAT GAG TGC AAC ACT TTA CCA GCA AAT TC 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 67) and 5′GGG GAC CAC TTT GTA CAA GAA AGC TGG GTC CTA CTA CTT ATT GCC GCA CAG TAA GC 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 68), 5 μl 10×PCR buffer 2 or 3, and 0.75 μl EXPAND High Fidelity DNA Polymerase. PCR conditions for amplification are as follows: 1 cycle of 94° C. for 2 minutes, 10 cycles of 94° C.—15 seconds; 55° C.—30 seconds; and 72° C.—1.5 minutes, 15 cycles of 94° C.—15 seconds; 55° C.—30 seconds; and 72° C.—1.5 minutes adding 5 seconds to the 72° C. extension with each cycle, 1 cycle of 72° C. for 7 minutes. After amplification, samples are purified using a Qiagen PCR cleanup column, suspended in 30 μl water and 10 μl are visualized on an agarose gel.

GMT and MT1 coding sequences are amplified from genomic DNA from the cyanobacterium Anabaena species (ATCC 27893). DNA used for PCR amplification of Anabaena GMT and MT1 is isolated by collecting pellets from 3 day old cyanobacteria cultures by centrifugation. The pellet is washed with 1 ml PBS to remove media. The suspension is centrifuged and the supernatent is discarded. The pellet is resuspended in 1 ml of water and boiled for 10 minutes. Anabaena amplification reactions contained 10 μl boiled Anabaena extract, 2.5 μl 20×dNTPs 2.5 μl of each primer, 5 μl 10×PCR buffer 2 or 3, and 0.75 μl EXPAND High Fidelity DNA Polymerase. PCR conditions for amplification are as follows: 1 cycle of 94° C. for 2 minutes, 10 cycles of 94° C.—15 seconds; 55° C.—30 seconds; and 72° C.—1.5 minutes, 15 cycles of 94° C.—15 seconds; 55° C.—30 seconds; and 72° C.—1.5 minutes adding 5 seconds to the 72° C. extension with each cycle, 1 cycle of 72° C. for 7 minutes. After amplification, samples are purified using a Qiagen PCR cleanup column, suspended in 30 μl water and 10 μl are visualized on an agarose gel.

Anabaena species GMT coding sequence is amplified using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: 5′GGG GAC AAG TTT GTA CAA AAA AGC AGG CTT AGA AGG AGA TAG AAC CAT GAG TGC AAC ACT TTA CCA ACA AAT TCA G 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 69) and 5′GGG GAC CAC TTT GTA CAA GAA AGC TGG GTC CTA TCA CTT ATC CCC ACA AAG CAA CC 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 70).

Anabaena species MT1 coding sequence is amplified using the synthetic oligonucleotide primers: 5′GGG GAC AAG TTT GTA CAA AAA AGC AGG CTT AGA AGG AGA TAG AAC CAT GAG TTG GTT GTT TTC TAC ACT GG 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 71) and 5′GGG GAC CAC TTT GTA CAA GAA AGC TGG GTC CTA TTA CTT TTG AGC AAC CTT GAT CG3′ (SEQ ID NO: 72).

The resulting PCR products are subcloned into pDONR™201 (Life Technologies, A Division of Invitrogen Corp., Rockville, Md.) using the GATEWAY cloning system (Life Technologies, A Division of Invitrogen Corp., Rockville, Md.) and labeled pMON67180 (mature S8 Brassica napus GMT), pMON68757 (mature P4 Brassica napus GMT), pMON68755 (mature Cuphea pulcherrima GMT), pMON68756 (mature Gossypium hirsutum GMT), pMON68758 (mature Tagetes erecta GMT), pMON67182 (mature Zea mays GMT), pMON67520 (Nostoc punctiforme GMT), pMON67518 (Anabaena species GMT), and pMON67517 (Anabaena species MT1). Double stranded DNA sequence is obtained to verify that no errors are introduced by the PCR amplification.

For functional testing GMT and MT1 sequences are then recombined behind the T7 promoter in the prokaryotic expression vector pET-DEST42 (FIG. 1) (Life Technologies, A Division of Invitrogen Corp., Rockville, Md.) using the GATEWAY cloning system (Life Technologies, A Division of Invitrogen Corp., Rockville, Md.) according to the manufacturer's protocol. The resulting expression vectors are labeled pMON67181 (mature S8 Brassica napus GMT), pMON67172 (mature P4 Brassica napus GMT), pMON67173 (mature Cuphea pulcherrima GMT), pMON67171 (mature Gossypium hirsutum GMT), pMON67177 (mature Tagetes erecta GMT), pMON67176 (Nostoc punctiforme GMT), pMON67175 (Anabaena species GMT), pMON67174 (Anabaena species MT1), and pMON67183 (Zea mays GMT) (see also table 6).

TABLE 6 Bacterial expression vectors for functional testing of methyltransferases Construct I.D. Gene Source of Gene Modifications pMON67171 GMT Gossypium hirsutum Mature protein pMON67172 GMT Brassica napus P4 Mature protein pMON67173 GMT Cuphea pulcherrina Mature protein pMON67174 MT1 Anabaena pMON67175 GMT Anabaena pMON67176 GMT Nostoc pMON67177 GMT Tagetes erecta Mature protein pMON67181 GMT Brassica napus S8 Mature protein pMON67183 GMT Zea mays Mature protein

EXAMPLE 4

Bacterial expression plasmids listed in Table 6 are transformed into expression host cells (BL21 (DE3) (Stratagene, La Jolla, Calif.)) prior to growth and induction. A 100 mL LB-culture with the appropriate selection antibiotic (mg/mL carbenicillin) is inoculated with an overnight starter culture of cell transformants to an OD₆₀₀ of 0.1 and grown at 25° C., 250 rpm to an OD₆₀₀ of 0.6. The cells are then induced by adding IPTG to a final concentration of 0.4 mM and incubating for three hours at 25° C. and 200 rpm. Cultures are transferred to 250 mL polypropylene centrifuge tubes, chilled on ice for five minutes, and harvested by centrifugation at 5000×g for ten minutes. The cell pellet is stored at −80° C. after thoroughly aspirating off the supernatant.

Methyltransferase activity is measured in vitro using a modification of the method described by d'Harlingue et al., 1985 d'Harlingue and Camara, J. Biol. Chem. 260(28):15200-3 (1985). The cell pellet is thawed on ice and resuspended in 4 mL of extraction buffer (10 mM HEPES-KOH pH 7.8, 5 mM DTT (dithiothriotol), 1 mM AEBSF (4-(2-aminoethyl)benzenesulfonyl fluoride), 0.1 μM aprotinin, 1 μg/mL leupeptin). Cells are disrupted using a French press. Each cell suspension is run through the pressure cell twice at 20,000 psi. Triton x-100 is added to a final concentration of 1% and the cell homogenate is incubated on ice for one hour before centrifugation at 5000 g for ten minutes at 4° C. The supernatant is transferred to fresh eppendorf tubes for methyltransferase activity analysis.

Enzyme assays are performed in assay buffer containing 50 mM Tris-HCl pH 7.0 (pH 8.0 for MT1), 5 mM DTT, 100 μM substrate (γ-tocopherol or γ-tocotrienol for GMT (Calbiochem-Novabiochem Corporation, San Diego, Calif.); 2-methylphytylplastoquinol (racemic mixture) (2-methylphytylplastoquinol and 2,3-dimethyl-5-phytylplastoquinol are synthesized as described by Soll and Schultz 1980 (Soll, J., Schultz, G., 1980, 2-methyl-6-phytylplastoquinol and 2,3-dimethyl-5-phytylplastoquinol as precursors of tocopherol synthesis in spinach chloroplasts, Phytochemistry 19:215-218) for MT1 and TMT2), 0.1 μCi ¹⁴C-SAM (48 μCi/μmole, ICN Biomedicals, Aurora, Ohio), and 0.5% TWEEN 80 (for substrate solubility) in a final volume of 1 mL. Reactions are prepared in 10 mL polypropylene culture tubes by first adding the substrate from concentrated stocks dissolved in hexane and evaporating off the hexane under nitrogen gas flow. TWEEN 80 is added directly to the substrate before adding the remainder of the assay buffer less the SAM. Crude cell extract is added to the assay mix in 50 μL volumes and the timed reactions are initiated by adding SAM. Reactions are vortexed thoroughly to dissolve all of the detergent into the mix and then incubated at 30° C. in the dark for 30 minutes.

The reactions are transferred to 15 mL screw-capped glass tubes with teflon-coated caps prior to quenching and phase extracting with 4 mL of 2:1 chloroform/methanol containing 1 mg/mL of butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT for stability of the end product). These are then vortexed for at least 30 seconds and centrifuged at 800×g for 5 minutes to separate the layers. If necessary, 1 mL of 0.9% NaCl is added to improve the phase separation (emulsions may form because the enzyme is added as a crude extract). The organic phase (bottom layer) of each phase extraction is transferred to a fresh 15 mL glass tube and evaporated completely under nitrogen gas flow. The reaction products are then dissolved in 200 μL of ethanol containing 1% pyrogalol and vortexed for at least 30 seconds. This is filtered through a 0.2 μm filter (WHATMAN PTFE) into glass inserts contained within light protected LC vials for HPLC analysis.

The HPLC (HP 1100) separation is carried out using a normal phase column (Agilent ZORBAX Sil, 5 μm, 4.6×250 mm) with 1.5 mL/minute isocratic flow of 10% methyl-t-butyl-ether in hexane over a period of 14 minutes. Samples are injected onto the column in 50 μl volumes. Quantitation of ¹⁴C-labeled reaction products is performed using a flow scintillation counter (Packard 500TR). Methyltransferase activities are calculated based on a standard curve of D-α-[5-methyl-¹⁴C]-tocopherol (Amersham-Pharmacia, 57 mCi/mmol).

The assay results confirm γ-tocopherol methyltransferase activity for all GMT gene candidates listed in table 6, except for the Brassica P4 gene (FIG. 17).

The MT1 assay results (FIG. 33) indicated 2-methylphytylplastoquinol methyltransferase activity with the Anabaena MT1 expression product. FIGS. 18, 19, and 20 represent HPLC chromatograms of the MT1 assay carried out with recombinant expressed Anabaena MT1, with recombinant Anabaena MT1 without 2-methylphytylplastoquinol substrate, and an assay performed with pea chloroplast extract as a positive control for the MT1 assay, respectively.

The Anabaena, corn, and cotton GMTs are chosen for the purpose of comparing enzymes from microbial and monocotyledon sources versus dicotyledon plant sources for methyltransferase activity with γ-tocotrienol. Assays are run in duplicate with γtocopherol assays run in parallel as controls. In both cases 100 μM of substrate is used, with the substrate as the only difference in assay conditions. The monocot GMT showed comparable methyltransferase activity with γ-tocopherol and γ-tocotrienol. In contrast the bacterial and the dicot GMT are substantially less active with γ-tocotrienol. The results of this experiment are summarized in FIG. 34.

EXAMPLE 5

Seed specific expression of GMT in Brassica is obtained by linking the Arabidopsis thaliana, ecotype Columbia gene to the napin promoter as described here. Poly A+ RNA is isolated from Arabidopsis thaliana, ecotype Columbia using an adapted biotin/streptavadin procedure based on a mRNA Capture Kit” (Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Indianapolis, Ind.). Young leaf tissue is homogenized in CTAB buffer (50 mM Tris-HCl pH9, 0.8M NaCl, 0.5% CTAB, 10 mM EDTA), extracted with chloroform and pelleted. As set forth in the manufacturer's instructions, the soluble phase is hybridized to biotin-labeled oligo-dT, immobilized on streptavadin-coated PCR tubes and washed. First strand cDNA is synthesized using the “1^(st) strand cDNA synthesis kit for RT-PCR” (Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Indianapolis, Ind.). cDNA synthesis is performed according to the manufacturer's protocol and followed by RNase digestion (0.5 units RNase in 48 μl for 30 min.).

Arabidopsis thaliana, ecotype Columbia is amplified using primers #16562 Arab GMT Forward-Not 5′ GCG GCC GCA CAA TGA AAG CAA CTC TAG CAG CAC CCT C 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 77) and #16563 Arab GMT Reverse-Sse 5′ CCT GCA GGT TAG AGT GGC TTC TGG CAA GTG ATG 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 78) and the EXPAND High Fidelity PCR System (Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Indianapolis, Ind.). A GMT gene is PCR-amplified for 30 cycles using a “touchdown” cycling profile: 3 min incubation at 94° C., followed by 15 cycles of 45 seconds denaturation at 94° C., 30 seconds annealing at 60° C. and 2 min extensions at 72° C. Primers are designed to add a NotI/Kozak site and a 3′ Sse83871 site.

The PCR product is desalted using a Pharmacia Microspin S-400 HR Column (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden). The purified fragment is inserted into pCR2.1 using a TOPO TA Cloning Kit (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, Calif.) resulting in the formation of pMON67155. The nucleotide sequence of the insert, Arabidopsis thaliana, ecotype Columbia GMT is confirmed by DNA sequencing. The GMT insert is excised from pMON67155 by NotI/Sse8371 digestion. Restriction enzymes are removed using StrataClean Resin (Stratagene, La Jolla, Calif.) and passed through a Microspin S-400 HR Column (Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden). The fragment is ligated into NotI/Sse8387I digested, identically treated pMON11307, resulting in the formation of the binary vector pMON67157 (FIG. 13).

The plant binary construct described above is used in Brassica napus plant transformation to direct the expression of the gamma-methyltransferases in the embryo. The vector is transformed into ABI strain Agrobacterium cells by the method of Holsters et al., Mol. Gen. Genet. 163:181-187 (1978). Brassica plants may be obtained by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation as described by Radke et al. Plant Cell Reports 11: 499-505 (1992) and WO 00/61771. The tocopherol level and composition of the seed from transgenic plants is analyzed using the method set forth in example 6.

Results of Brassica transformation are shown in FIG. 24, which is a graph representing the seed α-tocopherol levels for various transformants. Table 7 represents transformation data from various lines.

TABLE 7 ng α ng β ng γ ng δ ng total toco./mg toco./mg toco./mg toco./mg toco./mg % Avg. % seed seed seed seed seed Line Number Alpha Alpha Description 165.07 0.00 139.34 5.33 309.74 Control - Empty Vector R1 53.3 44.1 Control 102.41 0.00 189.34 3.76 295.50 Control R1 34.7 Control 126.90 0.00 229.27 6.64 362.81 Control R1 35.0 Control 139.09 0.00 230.64 5.97 375.70 Control R1 37.0 Control 137.88 0.00 173.73 4.36 315.97 Control R1 43.6 Control 203.16 0.00 126.41 2.74 332.31 Control R1 61.1 Control 113.75 0.00 187.68 5.86 307.29 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 37.0 87.1 PMON67157-10 197.02 0.00 137.48 4.50 338.99 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 58.1 PMON67157-9 201.11 0.00 134.65 6.52 342.28 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 58.8 PMON67157-5 212.78 0.00 92.97 3.36 309.11 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 68.8 PMON67157-4 240.49 0.00 53.44 1.77 295.70 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 81.3 PMON67157-6 231.63 0.00 49.46 0.00 281.09 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 82.4 PMON67157-25 234.90 0.00 45.91 1.03 281.84 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 83.3 PMON67157-20 334.07 0.00 57.69 1.65 393.41 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 84.9 PMON67157-27 345.00 0.00 36.75 2.23 383.99 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 89.8 PMON67157-21 286.02 0.00 1.04 1.61 288.67 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 99.1 PMON67157-2 387.23 0.00 0.16 1.64 389.03 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 99.5 PMON67157-3 322.59 0.00 0.68 0.66 323.93 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 99.6 PMON67157-8 331.27 0.00 0.46 0.61 332.34 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 99.7 PMON67157-1 322.34 0.00 0.00 0.62 322.97 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 99.8 PMON67157-24 316.73 0.00 0.51 0.00 317.24 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 99.8 PMON67157-13 357.05 0.00 0.24 0.00 357.29 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 99.9 PMON67157-17 310.97 0.00 0.17 0.00 311.13 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 99.9 PMON67157-22 324.07 0.00 0.00 0.00 324.07 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 100.0 PMON67157-23 367.84 0.00 0.00 0.00 367.84 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 100.0 PMON67157-28 438.54 0.00 0.00 0.00 438.54 Arabidopsis GMT in Canola R1 100.0 PMON67157-30

EXAMPLE 6

Seed specific expression of GMT in soy is obtained by linking the Arabidopsis thaliana, ecotype Columbia GMT gene with different types of seed specific promoters as described here. Total RNA is isolated from Arabidopsis leaf tissue (ecotype Columbia) using the Qiagen “RNEASY plant mini kit” (Qiagen Inc., Valencia, Calif.). First strand cDNA synthesized using the “1^(st) strand cDNA synthesis kit for RT-PCR” from Boehringer Mannheim. RNA isolation and cDNA synthesis is performed according to the manufacturer protocols.

The Arabidopsis GMT is amplified using primers “GMT-ara 5′ CAT GCC ATG GGA ATG AAA GCA ACT CTA GCA G” (SEQ ID NO: 75) and “GMT-ara 3′ GTC AGA ATT CTT ATT AGA GTG GCT TCT GGC AAG” (SEQ ID NO: 76) and the Boehringer Mannheim “EXPAND High Fidelity PCR System”. The GMT gene is PCR-amplified by 30 cycles under the following conditions: 5 min incubation at 95° C., followed by 30 cycles of 1 min at 95° C., 1 min annealing at 58° C. and 2 min extension at 72° C. These reactions are followed by 5 min incubation at 72° C. The primers are designed to add a methionine and a glycin to the N-terminus of the GMT protein.

The PCR products are EcoRI and NcoI digested and gel purified using the Qiagen “QIAQUICK Gel Extraction Kit” (Qiagen Inc., Valencia, Calif.). Purified fragments are ligated into EcoRI/NocI digested and gel purified pET30 (Novagen, Madison, Wis.) and pSE280 (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, Calif.) resulting in the formation of pMON26592 (FIG. 3) and pMON26593 (FIG. 4), respectively. Subsequently the Arabidopsis GMT sequence is confirmed. During the sequencing procedure it is found that the cloned sequence from the Columbia ecotype exhibited two nucleotide changes compared to the Arabidopsis thaliana GMT sequence published in WO 99/04622 (position 345, change from C to T; position 523, substitution from T to G). While the first substitution is a silent mutation, the second nucleotide change resulted in an amino acid change from serine to alanine.

For generation of a GMT plant transformation vector under p7S promoter control, a GMT is excised as a BglII/EcoRI fragment from pMON26592, gel purified, and cloned into a BglII/EcoRI digested and gel purified vector containing a p7S expression cassette resulting in the formation of the shuttle vector pMON36500 (FIG. 6). The p7S::GMT_(At) expression cassette is excised from pMON36500 by PstI digest, the ends are filled in by T4 DNA polymerase treatment, gel purified, and cloned into SmaI digested, alkaline phosphatase treated and gel purified pMON38207R, resulting in the formation of the binary vector pMON36503.

An NcoI/EcoRI digested, gel purified GMT excised from pMON26592 is ligated into an NcoI/EcoRI digested vector harboring a pARC5-1 expression cassette, resulting in the formation of the shuttle vector pMON36502. The pARC5-1::GMTAt expression cassette is excised from pMON35502 by NotI digest, blunt ends are generated by treatment with Klenow fragment, the fragment is gel purified, and ligated into Sma I digested, alkaline phosphatase treated and gel purified pMON38207R. The resulting binary vector is designated pMON36505.

An arcelin 5 promoter harbors 6 ATG start codons at the 5′ sequence located in different reading frames (Goosens et al., Plant Physiol. (1999), 120(4), 1095-1104, Goosens et al., FEBS Lett. (1999), 456(1), 160-164). To decrease the risk of interference of these start codons during gene expression, 4 of these putative translational start sites are deleted. Deletion of 4 ATG codons is achieved by PCR, using primers Parc5′ (5′-CCA CGT GAG CTC CTT CCT CTT CCC-3′) (SEQ ID NO: 79) and Parc3′ (5′-GTG CCA TGG CAG ATC TGA TGA TGG ATT GAT GGA-3′) (SEQ ID NO: 80). Primer Parc3′ is designed to hybridize to the Arcelin 5 promoter sequence at the translational start site and delete 4 of the 6 ATG codons. PCR is performed using pMON55524 (FIG. 5) as template DNA and the Boehringer Mannheim PCR Core Kit in 30 PCR cycles under the following conditions: 5 min incubation at 95° C., followed by 30 cycles of 1 min at 95° C., 1 min annealing at 60° C. and 40 second extension at 72° C. These reactions are followed by 5 min incubation at 72° C. The resulting approximately 360 bp PCR product is digested with SalI and NcoI, gel purified and cloned into SalI/NcoI digested and gel purified pMON55524, resulting in the formation of pMON36501 (FIG. 7). A DNA sequence of the cloned PCR product is confirmed by DNA sequencing. A GMT expression cassette using the modified promoter is assembled by ligating the backbone of SmaI/NcoI digested and gel purified pMON36501 with a GMTAt::Arcelin 5 3′ terminator fusion obtained from SmaI/NcoI digested gel purified pMON36502 (FIG. 8). The resulting shuttle vector is designated pMON36504 (FIG. 10). A binary vector (pMON36506) harboring a GMT expression cassette under the control of the modified arcelin 5 promoter is generated by cloning the NotI digested, Klenow fragment treated (for blunt end generation), gel purified GMT expression cassette into gel purified SmaI digested alkaline phosphatase treated, and gel purified pMON38207R vector backbone (5′-GAG TGÄ{umlaut over ( )}{umlaut over (T)}{umlaut over (G)}G TTA ATG CAT GAA TGC ATG ATC AGA TCT GCC ATG GTC CGT CCT-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 81) (original DNA sequence at the translational start site of the Arcelin 5 promoter—pARC5-1) (5′-GAG TGA TGG TTA ATC CAT CAA TCC ATC ATC AGA TCT GCC ATG GTC CGT CCT-3′) (SEQ ID NO: 82) (DNA sequence at the translational start site of the mutated Arcelin 5 promoter—pARC5-1M))

GMT expression vectors pMON36503 (FIG. 9), pMON36505 (FIG. 11) and pMON36506 (FIG. 12) are transformed into the soybean line A3244 using Agrobacterium mediated transformation. See, for example the methods described by Fraley et al., Bio/Technology 3:629-635 (1985) and Rogers et al., Methods Enzymol. 153: 253-277 (1987). Ten bulked seeds from the R₁ generation are ground and the resulting soy meal is used for tocopherol analysis. Twenty five to forty mg of the soy meal is weighed into a 2 mL micro tube, and 500 μl 1% pyrogallol (Sigma Chemicals, St. Louis, Mo.) in ethanol containing 5 μg/mL tocol, is added to the tube. The sample is shaken twice for 45 seconds in a FASTPREP (Bio101/Savant) using speed 6.5. The extract is then filtered (Gelman PTFE acrodisc 0.2 μm, 13 mm syringe filters, Pall Gelman Laboratory Inc, Ann Arbor, Mich.) into an autosampler tube. HPLC is performed on a ZORBAX silica HPLC column, 4.6 mm×250 mm (5 μm) with a fluorescent detection using a Hewlett Packard HPLC (Agilent Technologies). Sample excitation is performed at 290 nm, and emission is monitored at 336 nm. Tocopherols are separated with a hexane methyl-t-butyl ether gradient using an injection volume of 20 μl, a flow rate of 1.5 ml/min, and a run time of 12 min (40° C.). Tocopherol concentration and composition is calculated based on standard curves for α, β, γ and δ-tocopherol using Chemstation software (Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, Calif.). As shown in FIGS. 14-16, several lines from each construct completely or substantially converted δ and γ-tocopherol, leaving α and β-tocopherol as the only detectable tocopherol isomers.

EXAMPLE 7

Canola, Brassica napus, or soybean plants are transformed with a variety of DNA constructs using Agrobacterium mediated transformation. Two sets of DNA constructs are produced. The first set of constructs are “single gene constructs”. Each of the following genes is inserted into a separate plant DNA construct under the control of a seed specific promoter such as the arcelin 5, 7S α or napin promoter (Kridl et al., Seed Sci. Res. 1:209:219 (1991) (Keegstra, Cell 56(2):247-53 (1989); Nawrath, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91:12760-12764 (1994)): a bifunctional prephenate dehydrogenase such as the E. herbicola or the E. coli tyrA gene (Xia et al., J. Gen. Microbiol. 138:1309-1316 (1992)), a phytylprenyltransferase such as the slr1736 (in Cyanobase (www.kazusa.or.jp/cyanobase)) or the ATPT2 gene (Smith et al., Plant J. 11: 83-92 (1997)), a 1-deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate synthase such as the E. coli dxs gene (Lois et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 95 (5):2105-2110 (1998)), a 1-deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate reductoisomerase (dxr) gene (Takahashi et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 95 (17), 9879-9884 (1998)), a p-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase, such as the Arabidopsis thaliana HPPD gene (Norris et al., Plant Physiol. 117:1317-1323 (1998)), a geranylgeranylpyrophosphate synthase gene such as the Arabidopsis thaliana GGPPS gene (Bartley and Scolnik, Plant Physiol. 104:1469-1470 (1994)), a transporter such as the AANT1 gene (Saint Guily, et al., Plant Physiol, 100(2):1069-1071 (1992)), a GMT gene, an MT1 gene, and a tocopherol cyclase such as the slr1737 gene (in Cyanobase (www.kazusa.or.jp/cyanobase) or its Arabidopsis ortholog (PIR_T04448)), a isopentenylpyrophosphate isomerase gene (IDI), and an antisense construct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase (Sato et al., J. DNA Res. 7 (1):31-63 (2000))). The products of the genes are targeted to the plastid by natural plastid target peptides present in the trans gene, or by an encoded plastid target peptide such as CTP1. Each construct is transformed into at least one canola, Brassica napus and soybean plant. Plants expressing each of these genes are selected to participate in additional crosses. Crosses are carried out for each species to generate transgenic plants having one or more of the following combination of introduced genes: tyrA, slr1736, ATPT2, dxs, dxr, GGPPS, HPPD, GMT, MT1, AANT1, slr 1737, IDI, and an antisense construct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase.

The tocopherol composition and level in each plant generated by the crosses (including all intermediate crosses) is also analyzed. Progeny of the transformants from these constructs will be crossed with each other to stack the additional genes to reach the desired level of tocopherol.

A second set of DNA constructs is generated and referred to as the “multiple gene constructs.” The multiple gene constructs contain multiple genes each under the control of a seed specific promoter such as the arcelin 5, 7S α or napin promoter (Kridl et al., Seed Sci. Res. 1:209:219 (1991) (Keegstra, Cell 56(2):247-53 (1989); Nawrath, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91:12760-12764 (1994)) and the gene products of each of the genes are targeted to the plastid by an encoded plastid target peptide. The multiple gene construct can have two or more of the following genes: tyrA, slr1736, or ATPT2, dxs, dxr, GGPPS, HPPD, GMT, MT1, AANT1, slr 1737, or its plant ortholog, IDI, and an antisense construct for homogentisic acid dioxygenase.

Each construct is then transformed into at least one canola, Brassica napus or soybean plant. The tocopherol composition and level in each plant is also analyzed using the method set forth in example 6. Progeny of the transformants from these constructs are crossed with each other to stack the additional genes to reach the desired level of tocopherol.

EXAMPLE 8

Expression of the Anabaena MT1 coding sequence in Arabidopsis is carried out. The Anabaena putative-MT1 coding sequence is amplified from genomic DNA derived from 3-day old Anabaena sp. (ATCC 27893) cultures. To isolate DNA, cultures are spun and the pellet washed with 1 ml PBS to remove media. Subsequently, the suspension is centrifuged and the supernatant is discarded. The resulting pellet is resuspended in 1 ml of water and is boiled for 10 minutes. Anabaena DNA amplification reactions contain 10 μL boiled Anabaena extract, the EXPAND High Fidelity PCR System and the oligonucleotide primers: 5′GGG GAC AAG TTT GTA CAA AAA AGC AGG CTT AGA AGG AGA TAG AAC CAT GAG TTG GTT GTT TTC TAC ACT GG 3′ (SEQ ID NO: 83) and 5′GGG GAC CAC TTT GTA CAA GAA AGC TGG GTC CTA TTA CTT TTG AGC AAC CTT GAT CG3′ (SEQ ID NO: 84). The reaction mix is preincubated for 5 minutes at 95° C., during which time the polymerase is spiked in. The product is then amplified for 15 cycles of 94° C. for 30 sec, 60° C. for 30 sec, and 72° C. for 1.5 minutes each. During the cycling, the annealing temperature is decreased by 1° C. per cycle for each of the 15 cycles. An additional 15 cycles follow, consisting of 94° C. for 30 seconds, 45° C. for 30 seconds, and 72° C. for 1.5 minute, each followed by a 7 minute hold at 72° C.

After amplification, PCR products are purified using a Qiagen PCR cleanup column (Qiagen Company, Valencia, Calif.) and subcloned into PDONR™201 using the GATEWAY cloning system (Life Technologies, Rockville, Md.) to generate pMON67517. Sequences are confirmed by DNA sequencing using standard methodologies and then cloned into the napin cassette derived from pCGN3223 (Kridl et al., Seed Sci. Res. 1:209-219 (1991)) in a GATEWAY compatible binary destination vector containing the BAR selectable marker under the control of the 35S promoter. The MT1 gene is cloned in as a translational fusion with the encoded plastid target peptide CTP1 (WO 00/61771) to target this protein to the plastid from pMON16600. The resultant expression vector (pMON67211) is electroporated into ABI strain Agrobacterium cells and grown under standard conditions (McBride et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91:7301-7305 (1994)) and vector fidelity is reconfirmed by restriction analysis. Transformation of pMON67211 into wild-type Arabidopsis, accession Columbia, as well as three high δ-tocopherol mutant lines (hdt2, hdt10, hdt16) is accomplished using the dipping method (Clough and Bent, Plant J. 16(6):735-43 (1998)) and T₀ plants are grown in a growth chamber under 16 h light, 19° C. T₁ seeds are sprinkled directly onto soil, vernalized at 4° C. in the absence of light for 4 days, then transferred to 21° C., 16 hours light. Transgenic plants are selected by spraying with a 1:200 dilution of Finale (AgrEvo Environmental Health, Montvale, N.J.) at 7 days and 14 days after seeding. Transformed plants are grown to maturity and the T₂ seed is analyzed for tocopherol content using normal phase HPLC (Savidge, B. et al., Plant Physiology 129:321-332 (2002)).

Two lines of pMON67211 in the hdt2 mutant line (67211-6 and 67211-12) are taken forward to the next generation for examination of phenotype in T₃ seed. In doing so, T₂ seeds are sprinkled directly onto soil, vernalized at 4° C. in the absence of light for 4 days, then transferred to 21° C., 16 hours light. Transgenic plants are selected by spraying with a 1:200 dilution of Finale (AgrEvo Environmental Health, Montvale, N.J.) at 7 days and 14 days after seeding. Transformed plants are grown to maturity (9 plants from line 6, 9 plants from line 12, and 4 hdt2 mutant controls in one flat) and the T₃ seed is analyzed for tocopherol content using normal phase HPLC.

FIG. 25 shows the percent of seed δ-tocopherol in Arabidopsis T2 seed from lines expressing MT1 under the control of the napin promoter.

Table 8 below represents various data resulting from the above transformants.

TABLE 8 Alpha strategy R₂ Arabidopsis seed: CTP-MT1 HPLC sequence and data folder SR022602 Sample Ng α ng γ ng δ ng total Sample wt. toco./mg toco./mg toco./mg toco./mg % Avg. Name (mg) seed seed seed seed Serial Number Pedigree Gen Delta Delta % 77 14 3.42 459.72 20.17 483.31 9979-AT00002- 9979 For 67211s 4.2 4.1 54:@.0008. 78 15 2.59 461.87 19.26 483.73 9979-AT00002- 9979 For 67211s 4.0 54:@.0009. 89 13 4.78 459.21 16.34 480.33 AT_G193:@. PMON67211 T2 3.4 3.6 90 14 5.50 475.59 17.27 498.35 AT_G194:@. PMON67211 T2 3.5 86 13 5.64 476.70 18.13 500.46 AT_G190:@. PMON67211 T2 3.6 82 13 6.19 476.84 18.10 501.13 AT_G186:@. PMON67211 T2 3.6 88 14 7.13 477.51 19.27 503.91 AT_G192:@. PMON67211 T2 3.8 95 13 6.45 478.90 18.78 504.13 AT_G199:@. PMON67211 T2 3.7 85 11 5.67 480.31 19.62 505.60 AT_G189:@. PMON67211 T2 3.9 96 13 10.08 480.68 18.69 509.45 AT_G200:@. PMON67211 T2 3.7 84 13 6.34 487.23 18.47 512.04 AT_G188:@. PMON67211 T2 3.6 91 12 7.18 487.68 19.42 514.28 AT_G195:@. PMON67211 T2 3.8 87 14 4.45 492.16 19.92 516.52 AT_G191:@. PMON67211 T2 3.9 93 13 7.07 492.17 18.19 517.43 AT_G197:@. PMON67211 T2 3.5 92 13 7.12 493.27 19.77 520.15 AT_G196:@. PMON67211 T2 3.8 94 13 8.28 494.79 18.04 521.11 AT_G198:@. PMON67211 T2 3.5 80 13 8.70 498.94 18.71 526.36 AT_G184:@. PMON67211 T2 3.6 83 14 6.49 502.75 18.16 527.40 AT_G187:@. PMON67211 T2 3.4 81 12 6.75 505.87 18.84 531.45 AT_G185:@. PMON67211 T2 3.5 9 12 3.66 277.61 265.61 546.88 hdt2:0001. M5 48.6 48.1 10 10 5.62 268.82 239.24 513.69 hdt2:0002. M5 46.6 11 13 4.80 266.70 250.79 522.29 hdt2:0003. M5 48.0 12 12 6.34 281.87 271.70 559.90 hdt2:0004. M5 48.5 13 12 4.75 277.59 266.87 549.21 hdt2:0005. M5 48.6 18 13 4.38 410.93 146.44 561.74 67211-HDT2:0005. T2 26.1 18.9 20 12 5.53 421.63 133.57 560.73 67211-HDT2:0007. T2 23.8 22 11 4.39 413.42 116.94 534.75 67211-HDT2:0009. T2 21.9 17 12 5.31 425.83 114.16 545.30 67211-HDT2:0004. T2 20.9 15 12 4.97 402.64 105.62 513.23 67211-HDT2:0002. T2 20.6 27 13 4.74 434.37 112.96 552.07 67211-HDT2:0014. T2 20.5 16 13 5.98 416.73 108.13 530.84 67211-HDT2:0003. T2 20.4 14 12 7.07 431.05 107.70 545.81 67211-HDT2:0001. T2 19.7 23 10 4.74 436.59 106.91 548.24 67211-HDT2:0010. T2 19.5 26 12 6.89 424.31 104.39 535.59 67211-HDT2:0013. T2 19.5 21 11 4.91 441.50 104.57 550.98 67211-HDT2:0008. T2 19.0 28 12 4.40 493.29 87.63 585.32 67211-HDT2:0015. T2 15.0 24 13 4.20 452.86 74.83 531.89 67211-HDT2:0011. T2 14.1 25 13 5.20 510.41 72.70 588.31 67211-HDT2:0012. T2 12.4 19 11 5.58 545.61 67.86 619.05 67211-HDT2:0006. T2 11.0 3 12.5 3.36 262.76 180.18 446.30 hdt16:@.0007. Control M5 40.4 38.2 2 9.6 2.54 305.52 178.20 486.25 hdt16:@.0005. Control M5 36.6 1 11.9 3.36 290.12 177.76 471.24 hdt16:@.0003. Control M5 37.7 11 10.1 2.02 255.50 169.29 426.81 AT_G58:@. PMON67211 T2 39.7 15.3 12 12.4 5.28 352.67 100.76 458.71 AT_G59:@. PMON67211 T2 22.0 24 12.5 3.60 392.97 78.20 474.77 AT_G71:@. PMON67211 T2 16.5 14 12 3.90 380.29 72.98 457.18 AT_G61:@. PMON67211 T2 16.0 22 12.6 2.06 370.66 68.50 441.22 AT_G69:@. PMON67211 T2 15.5 18 12.2 3.52 379.38 70.29 453.19 AT_G65:@. PMON67211 T2 15.5 15 13 5.67 386.12 71.61 463.39 AT_G62:@. PMON67211 T2 15.5 21 11.3 3.86 405.98 74.54 484.39 AT_G68:@. PMON67211 T2 15.4 25 12.6 6.42 408.38 74.56 489.36 AT_G72:@. PMON67211 T2 15.2 19 12.5 3.95 412.64 72.24 488.84 AT_G66:@. PMON67211 T2 14.8 20 12.7 2.99 431.01 65.65 499.66 AT_G67:@. PMON67211 T2 13.1 17 12.3 5.77 423.19 48.73 477.70 AT_G64:@. PMON67211 T2 10.2 23 11.3 2.35 408.24 45.41 456.00 AT_G70:@. PMON67211 T2 10.0 10 11.9 7.81 443.06 43.58 494.45 AT_G57:@. PMON67211 T2 8.8 13 12.6 3.64 421.06 38.53 463.23 AT_G60:@. PMON67211 T2 8.3 16 12.9 3.76 430.69 37.10 471.56 AT_G63:@. PMON67211 T2 7.9 33 13.2 4.32 356.41 71.85 432.59 hdt10:@.0001. Control M6 16.6 9.6 34 13.1 5.73 469.11 12.79 487.62 hdt10:@.0002. Control M6 2.6 56 13.3 4.77 361.67 63.37 429.82 AT_G48:@. PMON67211 T2 14.7 4.7 61 8.1 2.70 351.84 50.96 405.50 AT_G54:@. PMON67211 T2 12.6 54 12.2 5.66 432.55 41.60 479.81 AT_G46:@. PMON67211 T2 8.7 59 13.9 5.18 416.88 38.34 460.40 AT_G52:@. PMON67211 T2 8.3 51 13 3.99 430.18 22.41 456.58 AT_G43:@. PMON67211 T2 4.9 58 12.2 4.88 463.37 21.72 489.97 AT_G51:@. PMON67211 T2 4.4 52 13.4 5.34 442.72 18.24 466.31 AT_G44:@. PMON67211 T2 3.9 64 12.6 5.50 477.62 10.72 493.84 AT_G117:@. PMON67211 T2 2.2 57 12.7 6.27 467.48 9.12 482.88 AT_G50:@. PMON67211 T2 1.9 50 13.1 4.83 450.16 7.94 462.93 AT_G42:@. PMON67211 T2 1.7 63 12.8 4.78 445.42 7.81 458.00 AT_G56:@. PMON67211 T2 1.7 55 12.6 8.32 460.07 7.58 475.98 AT_G47:@. PMON67211 T2 1.6 53 13.3 6.43 417.71 6.76 430.91 AT_G45:@. PMON67211 T2 1.6 62 12.6 5.36 473.04 6.88 485.28 AT_G55:@. PMON67211 T2 1.4 60 12.9 4.87 463.45 5.68 474.00 AT_G53:@. PMON67211 T2 1.2

FIG. 26 shows T₃ seed δ-tocopherol percentage from two lines expressing MT1 under the control of the napin promoter (pMON67211). Table 9 below shows T₃ seed data from hdt2 mutant lines transformed with pMON67211.

TABLE 9 Crop Biotype Pedigree mp:aT mp:gT mp:dT total toco. % delta Gen AT SEED hdt2:@.0001.0001. 2 280 190 472 40.3 M7 AT SEED hdt2:@.0001.0003. 4 263 204 471 43.3 M7 AT SEED hdt2:@.0001.0002. 3 262 208 473 44.0 M7 AT SEED hdt2:@.0001.0004. 4 271 220 495 44.4 M7 67211-6 11.0 R2 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0005. 4 398 83 485 17.1 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0001. 3 438 60 501 12.0 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0008. 4 453 59 516 11.4 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0002. 3 448 56 507 11.0 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0004. 2 417 52 471 11.0 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0007. 3 468 50 521 9.6 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0006. 4 464 45 513 8.8 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0009. 5 456 42 503 8.3 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0006.0003. 4 456 30 490 6.1 R3 67211-12 12.4 R2 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0002. 4 373 102 479 21.3 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0009. 3 399 98 500 19.6 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0003. 3 397 92 492 18.7 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0001. 4 440 66 510 12.9 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0008. 2 469 65 536 12.1 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0006. 4 438 53 495 10.7 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0004. 5 465 54 524 10.3 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0005. 5 460 52 517 10.1 R3 AT SEED 67211-HDT2:0012.0007. 3 458 47 508 9.3 R3

EXAMPLE 9

The CTP-MT1 gene described in example 8 is cloned behind the napin promoter into a binary vector with the ATPT2 gene from Arabidopsis and in another double construct with the prenyltransferase (PT) gene (SLR1736 ORF) from Synechocystis (described in PCT application WO 0063391).

The MT1 gene is cut out of vector pMON67517 using the restriction enzymes BspHI/PstI and cloned into the PstI/NcoI digested vector backbone of the napin shuttle vector pMON16600, resulting in the formation of pMON67210. The napin cassette from pMON67210, containing the MT1 gene as a translational fusion with the encoded plastid target peptide CTP1 (WO 00/61771) is then cut from this vector with Not I and the ends filled in with dNTPs using a Klenow procedure. The resulting fragment is inserted into vectors pMON16602 (digested with PmeI) and pCGN10822 (digested with SnaBI) to make pMON67213 and pMON67212, respectively (FIGS. 27 and 28). Vectors pMON 16602 and pCGN10822 are described in PCT application WO 0063391.

These double constructs express the MT1 gene and the homogentisate prenyltransferase from either Arabidopsis or Synechocystis under the control of the napin seed-specific promoter. The double gene constructs are used to transform Arabidopsis and transformed plants are grown to maturity as detailed in Example 2. The resulting T₂ seed is analyzed for total tocopherol content and composition using analytical procedures described in Example 2. FIGS. 29-32 show total, γ-, δ-, and α-tocopherol levels for various transformed plant lines. Table 10 provides further data from the above-described transformations.

TABLE 10 ng α ng γ ng δ ng total toco./mg toco./mg toco./mg toco./mg seed seed seed seed Serial Number Pedigree Construct 6.28 520.72 13.30 540.30 69000157657 AT00002:@.0321. Control For 67212s 5.83 612.04 10.36 628.24 69000157645 AT00002:@.0322. Control For 67212s 7.34 621.17 12.62 641.14 69000157633 AT00002:@.0323. Control For 67212s 6.48 609.23 13.41 629.12 69000157621 AT00002:@.0324. Control For 67212s 6.28 421.10 9.19 436.56 69000157710 AT_G73:@. PMON67212 4.72 433.54 7.99 446.24 69000157746 AT_G76:@. PMON67212 7.83 570.77 8.77 587.37 69000157758 AT_G77:@. PMON67212 7.38 588.65 8.70 604.74 69000157784 AT_G80:@. PMON67212 9.56 580.79 14.93 605.28 69000157722 AT_G74:@. PMON67212 5.99 605.44 10.38 621.82 69000157847 AT_G86:@. PMON67212 7.66 615.03 12.84 635.53 69000157859 AT_G87:@. PMON67212 8.29 634.10 9.58 651.97 69000157734 AT_G75:@. PMON67212 8.82 628.29 15.95 653.06 69000157809 AT_G82:@. PMON67212 7.41 636.96 10.07 654.45 69000157823 AT_G84:@. PMON67212 6.64 648.21 10.25 665.10 69000157861 AT_G88:@. PMON67212 7.46 624.59 34.85 666.91 69000157811 AT_G83:@. PMON67212 8.07 668.83 11.37 688.27 69000157760 AT_G78:@. PMON67212 7.96 691.84 11.38 711.18 69000157835 AT_G85:@. PMON67212 7.26 705.18 12.01 724.44 69000157796 AT_G81:@. PMON67212 7.95 708.29 12.64 728.88 69000157772 AT_G79:@. PMON67212 6.95 508.05 11.25 526.25 69000157582 AT00002:@.0328. Control For 67213s 8.16 513.84 14.12 536.11 69000157619 AT00002:@.0325. Control For 67213s 8.94 547.41 16.60 572.95 69000157607 AT00002:@.0326. Control For 67213s 7.83 483.85 15.95 507.63 69000157974 AT_G99:@. PMON67213 8.50 488.67 15.92 513.09 69000157671 AT_G101:@. PMON67213 7.18 503.50 13.74 524.42 69000157873 AT_G89:@. PMON67213 6.31 511.87 15.83 534.01 69000157950 AT_G97:@. PMON67213 7.30 515.26 11.47 534.02 69000157897 AT_G91:@. PMON67213 7.11 512.25 19.56 538.92 69000157962 AT_G98:@. PMON67213 6.61 525.17 12.82 544.60 69000157900 AT_G92:@. PMON67213 7.50 521.38 16.85 545.73 69000157683 AT_G102:@. PMON67213 7.87 529.25 11.29 548.41 69000157948 AT_G96:@. PMON67213 6.88 523.01 18.83 548.72 69000157912 AT_G93:@. PMON67213 7.56 534.21 13.03 554.80 69000157669 AT_G100:@. PMON67213 6.79 536.89 12.17 555.86 69000157885 AT_G90:@. PMON67213 7.83 535.00 17.97 560.80 69000157936 AT_G95:@. PMON67213 8.57 532.53 21.13 562.23 69000157708 AT_G104:@. PMON67213 8.15 550.66 18.42 577.23 69000157695 AT_G103:@. PMON67213 9.91 560.45 26.66 597.02 69000157924 AT_G94:@. PMON67213 

1. A substantially purified nucleic acid molecule comprising a nucleic acid sequence that encodes a polypeptide with gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase activity and is selected from the group consisting of (a) a nucleic acid sequence comprising at least 95% identity to SEQ ID NO:5; and (b) a nucleic acid sequence that encodes the polypeptide sequence of SEQ ID NO:35 or a homolog thereof with at least 90% identity to the polypeptide sequence of SEQ ID NO:35.
 2. The substantially purified nucleic acid molecule of claim 1, wherein said molecule comprises a nucleic acid sequence that encodes the polypeptide sequence of SEQ ID NO:35.
 3. The substantially purified nucleic acid molecule of claim 1, wherein said molecule is operably linked to a promoter region which functions in a plant cell.
 4. The nucleic acid molecule of claim 3, further comprising a 3′ non-translated sequence that functions in said plant cell to cause termination of transcription and polyA addition.
 5. A transformed plant comprising an exogenous nucleic acid molecule comprising the nucleic acid sequence of claim
 1. 6. The transformed plant according to claim 5, wherein said plant is selected from the group consisting of canola, corn, Brassica campestris, Brassica napus, oilseed rape, rapeseed, soybean, crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame, cottonseed, linseed, safflower, oil palm, flax and sunflower.
 7. The transformed plant according to claim 6, wherein said plant is canola or oilseed rape.
 8. The transformed plant according to claim 6, wherein said plant is soybean or soybean line A3244.
 9. The transformed plant according to claim 5, wherein said nucleic acid molecule is operably linked to a promoter.
 10. The transformed plant according to claim 9, wherein said promoter is a seed specific promoter.
 11. The transformed plant according to claim 10, wherein said promoter is the p7S or Arcelin 5 promoter.
 12. The transformed plant according to claim 11, wherein said promoter comprises the nucleic acid molecule of SEQ ID NO:
 81. 13. The transformed plant according to claim 11, wherein said promoter comprises the nucleic acid molecule of SEQ ID NO:
 82. 14. A method of producing a plant having a seed with an increased α-tocopherol or increased α-tocotrienol level relative to a seed with the same genetic background comprising: (A) transforming said plant with a nucleic acid molecule, wherein said nucleic acid molecule comprises the nucleic acid molecule of claim 1; and (B) growing said transformed plant.
 15. The method according to claim 14, wherein said plant is selected from the group consisting of canola, rapeseed, corn, Brassica campestris, Brassica napus, oilseed rape, soybean, crambe, mustard, castor bean, peanut, sesame, cottonseed, linseed, safflower, oil palm, flax and sunflower.
 16. The method according to claim 15, wherein said plant is canola, soybean or oilseed rape.
 17. A seed from a transformed plant comprising the nucleic acid molecule of claim 1, wherein the seed comprises said nucleic acid molecule.
 18. The seed of claim 17, wherein the nucleic acid molecule encodes the polypeptide of SEQ ID NO:35.
 19. A host cell comprising the nucleic acid molecule of claim
 1. 20. The host cell according to claim 19, wherein said cell is a bacterial cell, plant cell.
 21. The host cell according to claim 19, wherein said cell is an Agrobacterium tumefaciens or E. coli cell.
 22. The nucleic acid molecule of claim 1 comprising SEQ ID NO:5.
 23. The nucleic acid molecule of claim 1, as wherein said molecule is operably linked to a nucleic acid encoding a chloroplast transit peptide.
 24. The nucleic acid molecule of claim 1, as wherein said molecule is operably linked to a nucleic acid encoding a heterologous chloroplast transit peptide. 